Stormers don’t intend being overseas for just a week

The DHL Stormers fell short in the end of their top four finishes of the first two seasons of the Vodacom United Rugby Championship but it was a solid fifth place they ended with and coach John Dobson had good reason to still feel positive after his team’s win over the Emirates Lions.

The Stormers were short of their best form in their 29-24 win over the Johannesburg team but will be pleased with the way they dominated the final minutes to get home playing 14 against 15 in what looks likely to be their last home game of the URC season.

The only thing that could change that would be a bizarre set of results in the quarterfinals that would leave fifth as the top placing left in the competition.

Of course Dobson won’t be banking on that, and anyway he doesn’t appear unhappy that his team has to travel in order to win the competition they won in the inaugural season and narrowly missed out on silverware after being beaten in a close final by Munster last year.

One thing the Stormers don’t have on their CV from the first few seasons of the URC is a win in an away playoff game, just because they haven’t had to play one.

Going away to Glasgow Warriors on Saturday for the quarterfinal breaks a sequence of six successive home playoff games for the Stormers.

Next stop Glasgow! #iamastormer #dhldelivers @Vodacom #URC pic.twitter.com/WLmPopRiVA

— DHL Stormers (@THESTORMERS) June 1, 2024

AWAY PLAYOFF IS A BOX NEEDING TICKING

Dobson is sorry that sequence couldn’t be extended but he has big plans for his team and considers ticking off the box of having won playoff games as a necessary next step in his young team’s growth.

“It doesn’t really sell with my bosses for me to say that it’s a good thing we are playing away and I had some funny looks directed at me when I said that in a Board meeting on Thursday,” said Dobson at the post-match press conference.

“We’ve played every playoff game here at DHL Stadium. We said at the start of the season, one of the big things for us was how we play away. We’ve gone from nought from four on tour, to a really good performance in Leicester with a so-called B-team, a win in Paris, a friendly win in Northampton and then two wins on tour.

“This is the next step in our growth. I would have loved to have it here, for the people for the money and the chances of winning. But it’s not a bad thing for our growth to have it away.”

Indeed, the Stormers have developed good away momentum, with four consecutive wins overseas.

Take away the loss at Loftus to a good Vodacom Bulls team, and take into consideration that it was the second string team that lost to Leicester Tigers in that opening Investec Champions Cup game at Welford Road, and the Stormers have been pretty impressive on the road this year.

For instance, the Sharks were close to full strength while the Stormers were without their Boks when they won the coastal derby in Durban in February with a much greater degree of comfort than the end margin suggested, and the Stormers also won their away derby against the Lions to finish a close second to the Bulls in the South African Shield they won in the first two seasons.

IT WAS A HOME GAME THAT MOST COST THE STORMERS


Indeed, when Dobson looks back at the season, he will probably agree that it was a game at home that really cost his team in their quest to complete their recovery from their disastrous November tour by making the top four and securing another home playoff.

Everyone would have expected the Stormers to beat the Ospreys but the Welsh team shocked them at DHL Stadium and ever since then the Cape side has been in a battle just to ensure their Champions Cup status.

They did that comfortably in the end, with nine points from a possible 10 on tour, with the most noteworthy result being their close win over Connacht in Galway, effectively ensuring that the make or break part of their season was a 'made'.

The Stormers now travel to a venue where they lost without a phalanx of top players in November but where they were perhaps unlucky to lose last season, with a last gasp try at the Scotstoun in a Sunday game last January effectively being the decisive score in a game that the Stormers looked capable of dominating at some points.

Perhaps Dobson will think more back to that game than his team’s most recent clash, lost 20-9, with the team so capably coached by former Springbok assistant coach Franco Smith, which was played on a cold night with a slippery ball.

Even though he will feel his team has learnt how to deal with that, the typical northern conditions of November or January are not what he expects for Saturday’s game at the Scotstoun.

“I would really be excited to go to Scotstoun in May, compared to November without our Springboks,” said Dobson, who at the time wasn’t sure where his team would be heading as games still had to be played in the deciding round.

“We are up for this. I promise you, we are not going for one week now. If we can play in the afternoon at Scotstoun, it’s game on.”

IT WILL BE A DAYLIGHT GAME

It’s not an afternoon game, with the quarterfinal being the last of the weekend, kicking off at 8:35pm SA time. 

But that means it will be 7:35pm UK time, and anyone who has been to Scotland at this time of year will know it is light there until very late in the summer months. So Dobson has effectively got his wish.

If the Stormers win the quarterfinal they will probably be set for a rematch with the team that beat them in last year’s final, Munster.

When the Stormers played away against Munster in November, again understrength, they were unlucky not to get at least a share of the spoils in a game they lost 10-3.

Looking at the game against the Lions, Dobson said he wasn’t happy with the overall performance, but was more than satisfied with the character shown by his players in securing the result.

“Whatever may have been said beforehand, it was a tough game for us as we knew how much the Lions had to play for and we knew they’d come at us. We saw how disappointed they were afterwards that they lost,” he said.

“We lost way too much ball in contact and will have to rectify that but at the same time I have to commend the guys for the way they stuck in there when the Lions appeared to be getting momentum when we were down to 14 men. It was tremendous character and winning the game by scoring a try minutes from the end was a great way to go into the playoffs.”

The Stormers will go on tour with two key players from previous triumphs missing because of injury, Damian Willemse and Deon Fourie, but they certainly aren’t heading off without hope and will have in mind that Munster won the competition last season off a fifth placed finish in the league.