It is not often that a coach is disappointed when his team wins. However, DHL WP coach John Dobson was not shouting from the rooftops after his side’s 22-13 win over Border.
Dobson’s charges scored three tries to two to record their second win of the 2013 Vodacom Cup season – to go with one loss and one draw – and the DHL WP boss admitted: “It was a very disappointing performance – I’d say it was probably our worst in a couple if seasons.”
DHL WP trailed 0-10 at one stage in the first half, and by 10-13 at half-time, but they rallied strongly in the second stanza to score two tries and also managed to keep the Bulldogs scoreless in the process.
“You can talk against complacency, but it’s the actions that count. I felt we lacked intensity as well as respect for the ball,” said Dobson. “To make over 30 errors in a game is a yardstick of a poor performance. Our discipline was better but not to get five points was disappointing.
“Generally it was a poor performance in front of a magic Paarl community, but I was pleased with a couple of individual performances like Cheslin Kolbe at 15, whilst (lock) Taz Fuzani made a promising debut.”
Province will be playing at DHL Newlands on Saturday (kick-off 14h30) – for the first time in 2013 – but it will still be listed as an away fixture, after the Pampas requested to play their home match as the curtain-raiser to the DHL Stormers v Sharks Super Rugby encounter.
“I only hope that this performance can be explained away by their focus on this Saturday’s clash against the strong Pampas team,” said Dobson. “They put 65 points on Boland this week which means we are in for a helluva hard week.”