Director of rugby Nigel Davies spoke to the media ahead of Saturday’s BKT United Rugby Championship round five clash with the Vodacom Bulls in Pretoria.
Here’s what he had to say
Reading the comments from the Stormers and in the South African media, you gained a lot of respect last week. You must be proud of that?
ND: “Absolutely. The boys played as a team, they played for 80 minutes, they kept going. It’s been a big part of our pre-season to try and up their physicality for longer periods in the game so that they change the mindset of what’s acceptable and what’s achievable. I think we saw that in buckets last weekend. There’s no doubt you take confidence from a performance like that. I also thought we played some great rugby in the process, which is what we’re trying to do. We also know absolutely where we could have won that game and what we could have done differently, which is good as well.”
Do you take those positives into this Saturday’s game against the Bulls?
ND: “It’s about having a little bit more composure at key moments. Having said that, we’re playing a high-energy game, we’re looking to move the ball, we’re looking to take sides on without the ball, trying to disrupt the attacking team so there is an element of high risk. I think the one thing that will definitely help us is steadying the set piece because the penalties we conceded at scrum time in particular gave them a lot of entries into our 22.”
How impressed have you been with Tom Allen since he joined up with the squad?
ND: “He’s been really impressive in the training environment. He’s very athletic, he’s quite fast twitch for a second row so he’s powerful and good across the ground; he’s good in the air in the line-out, but also he offers himself around the park as well and he’s come from a very competitive environment. He played two or three games for the Hurricanes in their Super Rugby campaign this year, we’re looking forward to seeing how he goes.
“You also have Gabe McDonald at 12 who played well for us in the pre-season games and young Isaac Murray-Macgregor on the wing who is an exciting young talent. Both are making their first URC starts. The boys that started last weekend did a great job and I’m expecting these guys to do exactly the same.”
What about Corey Domachowski, what will he offer?
ND: “Corey’s only just come back from injury, but he’s there to do a job in the scrum for us and it’s been great to have him here. He’s got great energy, he’s a really good character to have in the camp. I don’t think he’d be doing much talking on Saturday at the altitude that we’re going to be playing at, but I know we won’t let us down.
“A big part of our recruitment in the off-season was really about not just bringing good players, but bringing good characters into the team. When you come away to a place like this for a couple of weeks, you really see the benefit of that. It’s been a great experience for the boys, they have bonded really well. I think we saw that in the performance against the Stormers, how tight they were, they never gave up.”
How concerned are you about the squad being stretched by international calls?
ND: “I think it’s a problem that all teams have got in the modern game where international rugby takes a far more prominent position. Longer term, it’s about making sure you’ve got the squad depth to deal with that. I said quite publicly last year our squad wasn’t big enough. I think we had 33 senior players. We’ve now increased that to the low 40s and you’ve probably got to go a little bit higher than that as well.”
How pleased are you to see Macs Page called up by Wales?
ND: “It’s fully deserved, he’s a special player. We’ve got pretty much a full backline missing, but we’ve also got a very competent backline here who are more than competitive, players putting their hands up. That’s a really positive position to be in. I tell our coaches all the time, our job is to perform, to win games and to develop Welsh international rugby players.”
It’s the final game of the opening block. How far are you towards achieving what you want to achieve?
ND: “In terms of the style of rugby, how we want to go about our business, the behaviours from the players on the field, we’re seeing a lot of real positives and we’re tracking in the right direction. There’s no doubt Saturday is going to be another huge test for us, but as I said, they’ve grown as a group. We weren’t really firing on all cylinders in the first couple of games, we’ve started to find our feet a little bit and we’ve now got more players coming back into the mix, new players coming back into the mix, which, again, is very encouraging.”