It may not be appreciated that much by coach John Dobson at the moment but the rare backs-to-the-wall situation his DHL Stormers team finds itself in halfway through their Vodacom United Rugby Championship tour might provide a necessary growth opportunity for the Cape franchise.
This is a backs-to-the-wall moment for the Stormers because they have yet to lose three in a row in the URC era and also because of what comes next after their losses to Glasgow Warriors and Benetton - a match against Munster at Thomond Park, a game that is sure to generate a lot of extra interest just because it is a repeat of last year’s URC final.
Munster also have a point to prove because they went down to Ulster this past weekend, their first defeat since they started the successful sequence that took them to last year’s trophy with a narrow win over the Stormers in Cape Town in the penultimate league game.
So you don’t even have to factor in the extra intensity generated by the memories of the individual battles and wounds inflicted and sustained in the 2022-23 final, which Munster won against the odds with a try scored in the dying minutes of the game, to see why Saturday’s clash in Limerick has added meaning.
DOBSON AGREES HIS TEAM ARE NOW IN A TOUGH PLACE
Dobson readily admitted it after his team’s agonising 20-17 defeat to Benetton at Treviso at the weekend - the loss has heaped extra pressure on his team they would not have wanted going into the clash with the team that deposed them as champions five months ago.
“It is very tough for us now, we wanted to go into the Munster game on the attack and not the defensive. We needed this win, this was one we wanted from this tour, so it has made it very tough for us,” said Dobson.
Tough in the sense that the Stormers now desperately need to win or they won’t break even from their tour, with just one more match against Cardiff to come. The Stormers did win the inaugural URC after a four-match tour that featured one draw and two losses at the start of their campaign, but there was arguably a lot less expectation on them then.
This pressured position is a rare situation for the Stormers because, subsequent to the 2021-22 tour that started the URC era for the Cape team, they have generally been ahead of the game in terms of league standings rather than chasing it. Last year, the Stormers came out of the blocks quickly and built up enough of a platform to prompt Dobson to say on a few occasions that his team were ahead of where they expected to be at that point.
Dobson may not have seen a win over Glasgow Warriors at the Scotstoun as a gimme but he would have been banking on a win against Benetton even though the side from Treviso, particularly when they play at home, are a proper team and laden with Italian international players.
The Stormers therefore are under the sort of pressure they didn’t experience much last season, and perhaps the pressure of having to pull everything out in a quest for a win at Thomond Park will be another of those learning experiences that Dobson has spoken so much about. Certainly, coming through it will considerably grow the confidence of his players and further glue together the team.
AN OPPORTUNITY TO MAKE A POINT
The Stormers are no longer in the situation they were in over the past two seasons. They were first desperate to survive (2021-22) and then in the season that followed, they were desperate to prove that the 2021-22 win wasn’t a fluke.
By making two URC finals in a row, the Stormers have proved they have arrived as a rugby force in the competitions they compete in, and with their new equity partners now on board, they should have the financial muscle to build themselves into consistent frontrunning contenders at both URC and Heineken Champions Cup level.
Good though Benetton have become - they are the only unbeaten team in the URC at this point - a trip to Treviso is nonetheless one you would expect a champion team to win (albeit Munster also failed to win there and were lucky to escape with a draw two weeks ago).
Maybe Saturday’s loss will be a reminder that the Stormers aren’t quite where they want to be yet, but with a home run of matches to look forward to after this tour and their missing World Cup-winning Springboks set to return at the start of December, how the team responds to their current predicament could decide the outlook for the rest of the campaign.
If they imbue themselves with the Bok refusal to lose spirit and leave Belfast with a win, it will entail stepping across a frontier and becoming what their opponents on Saturday evolved into last season - a team that can win really big games overseas.
The Stormers have won enough away derbies to prove they can perform away from Cape Town and win against the odds, it is a win against really rated opponents on foreign soil that has yet to be entered on their CV. Saturday is an opportunity for them to do that.