Stormers out coached by Friend
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Brumbies to revert to attacking style for Super 14 match against the LionsBy
March 01, 2010 After adopting conservative tactics in their 19-17 win against the Stormers, the Brumbies will revert to their natural attacking game against the Lions in Canberra on Friday night.
The Lions upset the Brumbies in Johannesburg last year, but they have lost their first three games of this season to the Stormers, Chiefs and Hurricanes in high-scoring affairs.
With seven of their remaining 10 games in Canberra, the Brumbies will be keen to resume their traditional expansive style of game.
"I've only seen them (the Lions) play last week," Brumbies captain Stephen Hoiles said.
"They like to score a lot of points obviously.
"We'll probably try to play a bit more football. We just knew the way the Stormers were (so) we had to grind it out.
"If you throw the ball around and don't respect them, they will punish you - the likes of Jaque (Fourie) and Bryan (Habana), who are great at scoring tries at the drop of a hat."
Brumbies coach Andy Friend decided to play a tight game against the Stormers after watching the South African side beat New South Wales Waratahs 27-6 in Cape Town the previous week.
The Stormers' strong defence held the Waratahs try-less, while Habana scored two of their three tries.
But Habana became so frustrated against the Brumbies he gave away a spate of penalties, while Fourie was hardly seen out wide.
"We watched the Waratahs throw a fair bit at them last week and didn't seem to be able to break them," Friend said.
"We thought, too, in watching the way they played they were pretty keen to play in certain areas of the field, but not so keen to play in other areas of the field so we wanted to make sure we kept them in areas we didn't want to play footy in.
"It came down to patience really. That was one of the pleasing aspects.
"They stuck to what we said we wanted to do as a group."
With the scoreline locked at 6-6 at half-time, Friend predicted the match would be determined by a moment of brilliance and he was proved correct when veteran Brumbies openside flanker George Smith scored an intercept try in the 77th minute to put the visitors in front, 19-12.
But he said the Brumbies still needed to improve their discipline, which had cost them the previous week against the Bulls in Pretoria.
Once again, the Brumbies were penalised heavily at the scrum, maul and breakdown.
"It's a key area we've got to fix," Friend said. "We need to be more disciplined and we need to have a look at what it is we are doing that's incurring the wrath of the referees."
http://www.foxsports.com.au/story/0,...002381,00.html
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Originally Posted by mudskipper
