DHL Stormers coach John Dobson had every reason to feel gutted after his team’s 20-11 defeat to Leinster in the Vodacom URC semifinal in Dublin, a game in which his team came so close and yet so far from clinching a home final in Cape Town.
That’s what the Stormers were playing for - a home final against the Vodacom Bulls, who’d won the earlier semifinal, and there was no faulting his team for effort and bravery. And when the 68th minute arrived and the Stormers were in Leinster territory, it looked like a movie that had been played over a few times this season was on rerun - the slow poison had worked, and it looked like Leinster were there for the taking as they seemed to have run out of gas.
But then came a moment of madness from Stormers replacement forward Ruan Ackermann, who received a yellow card that was upgraded to a red for a dangerous challenge that effectively cost his team the game.
Then, two minutes later, Salmaan Moerat, who, along with Ackermann, was primed to bring the decisive late physical advantage for the visitors, which they were succeeding in doing, followed Ackermann to the naughty chair after a frankly ridiculous call from referee Hollie Davidson, who had a lamentably poor 80 minutes with the whistle.
COACH POLITE ABOUT MOERAT CARD BUT HONEST ABOUT THE RED
Dobson had to be polite about the latter incident and just said he was “confused,” but he had no complaints about the Ackermann red card.
“That was definitely the right call; I have apologised to Leo (Cullen, the Leinster director of rugby) for the first one,” said Dobson at the post-match press conference at the AVIVA Stadium.
“That is the kind of incident we have to get out of the game. It was shoulder to head. If you allow that, there will be no space for jackalling in the game. It was a huge setback for us, as at the time we felt we could see cracks showing with Leinster, certainly physically. I didn’t understand the second yellow card (to Moerat), but I only saw the incident once.
“For 68 minutes, we dared to dream. When we got into their 22, which we didn’t do often in the second half, had we converted (that territorial position), then we would have been in a good position because they were looking tired.”
HAD LEINSTER ON THE ROPES
Indeed, Dobson’s view that Leinster were succumbing physically might have been on the money given how the Stormers were still able to fight, and mount some attacks and even out-maul Leinster with a six-man pack when they had only 13 men on the field.
You’d have expected Leinster to capitalise on their two-man advantage, but apart from scoring the match-clinching try when the Stormers were down to 14, they didn’t make much late-game impression.
It was a day when the 50/50 calls mostly went against the Stormers, and to be fair it was Leinster who applied the most pressure, so most of the visiting team’s instances of poor discipline that let them down were rooted in that, but as Dobson tacitly admitted in a voice note sent to the South African media after the Dublin press conference, that’s the price you play when you play knock-out games away from home.
“It was very disappointing to lose the semifinal and I think we have to reflect that if it were not for that disappointing loss at home to Connacht, where I think there is a general understanding of the circumstances surrounding that game (the emotion around the death of team manager Chippie Solomon), and missed log points in Ulster and Cardiff, we would have played Leinster at home.
“I think after what we saw in this game, that would have been a lot more useful, playing Leinster in Cape Town. But we’ve always wanted to go to the AVIVA and play a full-strength Leinster, with something like 800 international caps or so. To see where we are in our development, and in that regard, I thought we did reasonably well.
“They got a fast start, as we knew they would. We tried to manage it as best we could. And then we had to just keep grinding away. They play good phase-based rugby, and we wanted to play our brand, which is to defend really well and get them on the transitions and contestables. I thought we did reasonably well with that, but maybe lost a few too many scraps on the contestable kicks.
“Certainly more than we’d like to have. If we’d won two or three more of those, the game might have been different. But the players did well. I thought on the 68th or 69th minute, with a lineout in their 22, with our maul starting to get going, and them starting to look physically tired and on the back foot physically, that we could have got that and won the game.
“I am very disappointed that we weren’t able to do that. I felt we were a bit unlucky in that lineout and the penalty after that, and maybe we need to get better at understanding the legal requirements around set pieces. The cards were obviously disappointing, and once we were down to 13, that was obviously tricky.”
PLENTY TO BE ENCOURAGED BY
There was probably a hint of sarcasm and not wanting to directly criticise the referee in the comment about needing to get to grips with legal requirements, but Dobson was encouraged by the fact that being down to 13 didn’t stop his team from still trying to go all out for the win.
“If you consider we had three yellow cards in the second half (Leolin Zas was also carded for a tap down), that we were without key players including Sacha (Feinberg-Mngomezulu), then it was a very competitive performance. I think we can get some confidence from how we fought given all of that, but I am just disappointed that we couldn’t get a semifinal for Cape Town. For 68 minutes we dared to dream, but in the end, it was not to be.”
Overall, though, it was a night where the Stormers, even though they missed out on the final, underlined the growth they have undergone this season.
“We have always wanted to play their full-strength team at the AVIVA, and now we have, and we went toe to toe with them and, I mean this in a good way, I think after tonight they will have respect for us,” said Dobson.
“We were without a lot of key players so I think with a few adjustments and a few guys coming in we can challenge really strongly in future. I feel really miserable now, and really bitter we weren’t able to set up a Cape Town final, everything in the city would have been rugby mad for two weeks. But after a few Guinness, I am sure we will see the plenty of positives that we got out of this experience and feel a lot better about it.”