RUGBY NEWS - Those who were there and who know Robbie Fleck will agree that the DHL Stormers coach has seldom worn his anger on his sleeve as obviously as he did after his team lost to the Cell C Sharks in a Vodacom Super Rugby derby just before the June international break.
The Stormers dominated the last two thirds of that game but had left themselves with way too much to do after a listless and lethargic start where the players, particularly the Springboks who had been announced in Allister Coetzee’s squad earlier that week, appeared to be uninterested and on a go-slow.
Pieter-Steph du Toit was particularly poor and after being dominated by the Sharks’ highly motivated Ruan Botha, he was yanked from the field by Fleck. While the Bok squad had already been selected, the starting team hadn’t, and that Kings Park non-performance might have cost the 2016 South African Player of the Year his place in the Bok starting line-up in the series against France.
“I was very hacked off after that game and I don’t think I’ve ever been so angry as a coach and I admit the memory does still linger a bit,” said Fleck at the start of the build-up week to Saturday’s clash with the Toyota Cheetahs in Bloemfontein.
