DHL Stormers head coach John Dobson expressed his disappointment in their performance following their 16-53 loss to Harlequins at Welford Road.
The lack of discipline by the DHL Stormers saw French referee Ludovic Cayre dish out four yellow cards of which three of them were shown to the DHL Stormers in the second half.
“This was a poor performance by us. Two yellow cards last week, and three this week. We pride ourselves on our defence, we think we’ve got one of the best in world club rugby, but Harlequins undid us. A very disappointing performance," Dobson said.
“We would’ve liked to have competed more and for the scoreline to be better, and I think we could’ve if a couple of things had gone our way, but we’ve got to look at ourselves.”
“The team we put out there wasn’t good enough, given the depth of our squad. I think if we came here full noise, Damian Willemse was available, Sacha Feinberg-Mngomezulu, Malherbe and Kitshoff, two of the world’s best props… It’s just poor timing."
“What we do know about this tournament, and we were reminded of it tonight, is it’s a step up, it’s another world. I think we as South Africans are so used to just seeing "club" and don’t realise it’s another level."
Dobson expressed his gratitude that the Stormers can play in the global club competition defending him fielding a "second string" outfit.
“It’s like you’re invited to somebody’s birthday party and you complain about the chips or something."
“We’re so grateful to be here so I desperately want us to start and play our strongest team.”
Dobson said the Stormers did receive a few harsh calls in the scrums and despite the loss, the positive is that more squad depth has been created for the future.
“I think the front row really got unlucky with the rub of the green at some of the scrum calls."
“I don’t feel they got on top of us physically, we kept fighting so in terms of squad depth it’s a massively important part of our project that we develop so we don’t have 25 Stormers but have 40 Stormers."