Stormers are confident they will make Gqeberha smile

It’s not just Cape Town that the DHL Stormers will be working on making smile this weekend, though their passionate home base will never be far from their hearts, but also the rugby starved people of the Eastern Cape who represent a potential growth point for the franchise.

The Stormers return to Gqeberha and the Nelson Mandela Bay Stadium for the first time since 2022, when they hosted the Dragons in a Vodacom United Rugby Championship clash, because their first Investec Champions Cup fixture of the new campaign happens to clash with the weekend of the Cape Town Sevens.

This weekend we do Rugby 🔥

It’s all systems go for the Investec Champions Cup clash between @THESTORMERS VS Toulon 🏈

Get ready for a fun day for the whole family 😁 - There will be food trucks to ensure your bellies are sorted 🍔🍟🫔

📍Nelson Mandela Bay Stadium
🗓️ 7… pic.twitter.com/mWNYKFxSyP

— NMB Stadium (@NMB_Stadium) December 4, 2024

The Stormers have played most of their recent games at alternative venues because of clashes with events at their regular home base of DHL Stadium at Danie Craven Stadium in Stellenbosch.

They lost there to Glasgow Warriors in their last home URC game in October in front of what was close to a full house for that venue, but Stellenbosch only accommodates a crowd of around 15 000. Nelson Mandela Bay Stadium seats 40 000, and at the start of this week 16 000 tickets had already been sold, which considering there is a cricket test being played at St George’s Park on the same weekend is excellent going.

CHANCE FOR E CAPE FANS TO BE PART OF STORMERS COMMUNITY

Stormers coach John Dobson said after his team’s comfortable win in Gqeberha two years ago that his team had so enjoyed their time there, and so enjoyed the passionate and very boisterous support they got from the people of the Eastern Cape, that he’d like to repeat the experience on an annual basis.

In other words, give the people of Gqeberha reason to feel they are part of the Stormers community.

Given that it has now been a good few years since the Southern Kings were last an entity, and let’s not forget the great support that Lionel Cronje’s team enjoyed in a relatively successful final year in Super Rugby (2017), there is indeed no good reason why the people of the Eastern Cape shouldn’t buy into the Stormers as their team.

Eastern Province was linked to the Sharks back in the early days of Super Rugby, but Cape Town is much closer to Gqeberha than Durban is, and you do get the feeling when you go to the Eastern Cape, or for that matter pass through the Garden Route area represented as South Western Districts on the rugby field on the way there, that the Stormers are the popular team.

The Stormers face Toulon, a club that has achieved success in France and Europe in the past, and one that is possibly the most identifiable French team for South Africans due to the phalanx of legendary players - Eben Etzebeth, Duane Vermeulen, Bakkies Botha, Bryan Habana…call out the names, they’re all legends - who have worn their jersey.

“It is very exciting for us to be taking a game as big as this one, a Champions Cup game, to the Eastern Cape,” said Stormers assistant coach Rita Hlunwani.

“We had a great experience last time we were in Gqeberha, and we really hope that the people in that city come out in numbers again. I know there are a lot of fans travelling down from Cape Town to watch us so it should be quite an occasion.

“Toulon are obviously a club with a lot of history. If you turn on you television here to watch games overseas you always want to see familiar faces, and Toulon have had a lot of them.

Everyone here knows about Toulon because Bakkies played for them, Bryan Habana played for them, Duane Vermeulen played for them, Joe van Niekerk played for them. They are a club well known in South Africa so it is nice to be playing against them for the first time.”

TOULON WILL BE A FORMIDABLE CHALLENGE

Hlungwani expects the challenge from Toulon to be formidable.

“We expect them to be big, with a massive pack, physical and hard, but also not slow around the field,” said the Stormers forwards coach.

“We know the quality of the French league. And we know how their national team plays. They are not unlike us in many ways. French rugby is in a good place right now. France beat the All Blacks a few weeks ago, and they are in a good position, with a strong internal league. They have amazing depth and the future looks bright for French rugby.”

Although the Stormers have now lost two games in a row in the URC, loose-forward Willie Engelbrecht, who will play his 50th game for the Stormers if he is selected, reckons the quality of the opposition in Gqeberha means that a Stormers win will build confidence for what is to come in a month that concludes with two tough home URC derbies against the Emirates Lions and Sharks.

“Apart from the fact it is the start of a new competition, there is a lot of motivation to win against Toulon because of what it will mean to us. It will give our season a little bit of oomph. We have been a bit unlucky recently but I sense our luck will start to change,” said the former Mpumalanga Pumas Currie Cup winning captain.

Although they lost last weekend against the Sharks, the Stormers feel they have a right to feel confident. Apart from effectively going coast to coast for what would have been a winning try off the last move of the game had it not been for a little knock-on at the start of it, there’s also the matter of a pack that is starting to look more formidable and which troubled the Sharks in the set-pieces last week.

“We were obviously disappointed to lose but we were very happy with how we operated in the set pieces against the Sharks and we feel we are making good progress in that area,” said Hlunwani.

The Stormers team for Saturday’s game will be announced after their arrival in Gqeberha on Friday.