Rassie reveals his play-off plan
Mon, 05 May 2008 15:33
Happy chappy: Rassie Erasmus
Stormers coach Rassie Erasmus has unveiled his masterplan for taking his team all the way to Super 14 glory on May 31.
The Stormers are currently in fourth place and have their play-off hopes in their own hands with two matches to go in the round-robin stages.
The Crusaders have, barring a miracle, secured top spot on the standings. This means that they will host a semifinal, and in all likelihood, the Final at the end of May.
Erasmus is banking on this scenario playing out, which means that his team would need to beat the Crusaders in Christchurch in either the semifinal or the Final to be crowned Super 14 champions.
"We want to win our next two games to secure our log position [in the top four] and that is why the focus is not to go out and get bonus points, before we have won the game," Erasmus said in an interview with the Independent Newspapers.
"If you focus too much on bonus points, such as in kicking for touch when you should have kicked for poles, you can lose games.
"If you ask where I would like to finish on the log I would say we would like to finish first. But that is not really possible, so we just want to win our next two games, see where we are on the log and take it from there," added the Stormers coach.
The Stormers could benefit from playing a semifinal in Australia or New Zealand, thereby avoiding the long trip overseas less than a week before a possible final.
But if the Crusaders lose their semifinal and the Stormers finish second on the log and win theirs, they could secure a Final at Newlands.
What is for certain is that the Stormers will need to win their remaining two fixtures to book a place in the play-offs.
It's for that reason that the technically savvy Erasmus wants to start mirroring play-off rugby in the Stormers' final two round-robin games to prepare themselves for a possible semifinal, where bonus points are irrelevant and the only statistic that counts is the one on the scoreboard.
"If you are playing semifinal rugby, then when you get there you will be used to playing that kind of pattern having practiced it in these kind of [round-robin] games,"said Erasmus.
"In the second half [against the Brumbies] we did not play great rugby. But the kind of game we played was nice to play in a semifinal," he noted.
Erasmus also explained that the key to beating the Stormers' New Zealand rivals in a possible semifinal was to restrict their phase play.
"If the Blues or the Hurricanes, with their powerful All Black centres, take the ball through more than three phases you are in trouble, and the chances are good that they will score," said the astute Erasmus.
"We had to shut the Brumbies down in the same way, because if they got past four, five or six phases, chances are you would be defending for 12-13 phases.
"We had to shut them down to win the battle and it worked," he said of the Stormers' effort at the breakdown on Saturday.
It all sounds good enough but before the Stormers even think of extending their Super 14 season, they will need to beat the second-placed Waratahs at Newlands on Saturday.
If they do, they could end up in second place by the end of the weekend - that's if the Hurricanes stumble against the Western Force.
Time will tell.
