WP playing devil's advocate to prep Stormers for Connacht: 'We never made it easy for them'

The Stormers’ provincial union, Western Province, has been tasked with playing "devil’s advocate" in training, adopting the villainous role in preparing the seniors for their United Rugby Championship (URC) semi-final against Connacht on Saturday.

It’s a role they played well last week when Province prepped the Stormers by studying the Bulls and adopting the sky blues’ methods in the hope of getting the Stormers battle hardened.

It seemed to work a treat as the Stormers defeated the Bulls 33-21 to book their last four place.

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Province coach and Stormers skills coach Labeeb Levy said their mission in training was to make matters as hard as possible for the Stormers.

The two teams trained together in the WP High Performance Centre in Bellville on Tuesday before the Stormers moved their training base to Stellenbosch on Wednesday.

Levy also revealed that pouring some of their focus into the URC might have been to their detriment in the Currie Cup, where they lost in Bloemfontein to the Free State Cheetahs.

But they’re happily doing it for the greater good.

"We did it last week, which helped us and them. Part of our goal is to provide good quality," Levy said.

"They’re obviously a good defensive team, so you have to be sharp when you go against them.

"The thing that’s different this week is that, we’re playing Friday and they’re playing Saturday, which makes the day in which we train and prepare is slightly different.

"[On Tuesday] we had an integrated session, which is always nice because they come out all guns blazing and we try to match them. What we gave them should prepare them for the weekend.

"Last week, even though we were