John Dobson compliments set-piece as stunning Stormers continue URC march

The men from Cape Town have laid down an early marker in the URC. Their comprehensive 31-13 victory over Zebre in Italy on Saturday was a far from perfect performance, but the result made it four wins from four outings in the competition, and they are sitting pretty at the top of the table.

From stoic defence that's conceded just three tries all season to exciting counter-attacking, Dobson is spoiled for choice when it comes to pointing out positives. This time around, the coach was impressed with their set-piece plays.

"What's pleasing is our general set-piece going well," he said.

"Our scrum gave us a couple of penalties. We just felt that it came later than it did in previous games. We didn't have it quite as easy at scrum time.

"But we were without Ntuthuko Mchunu, Neethling Fouche, Sazi Sandi and Frans Malherbe. I felt that Zachary Porthen [who also made 12 tackles] was exceptional.

"The set-piece and our log position are nice, and I felt we defended very well."

Dobson admitted there was some room for improvement as they look to complete the Italian Job next week with a win over Benetton in Treviso.

"It wasn't our best performance, we were a bit flat," he reflected.

"Whether the reasons were the time that we played, or that it was a long day.

"Despite the pressure exerted by Zebre, it still wasn't our best showing. I felt that we had a strong turn towards the back end of last season and the beginning of this season.

"We may have varied it [the game plan] a little bit too much this week. I hate using the term 'overplayed', but in some ways, we probably pushed it a little bit. We wanted to be direct. Zebre introduced us into seeing space, and they closed it down very well."