DHL Stormers coach John Dobson feels his team has a responsibility that goes beyond just the pride of the club and brand when they face the All Blacks in the opening match of the Rugby’s Greatest Rivalry tour at DHL Stadium in Cape Town on Friday night.
Dobson believes that it is the concept of the traditional tour, meaning big touring teams playing against the top local club or provincial teams in addition to playing their test matches, that is at stake during the New Zealand team’s four week South African odyssey.
Speaking on the eve of the long awaited first match, Dobson said that initially there were misgivings about the timing of the game, which happens at what would normally be the start of the Stormers’ pre-season, but then the excitement of his players had taken over as they committed 100 per cent to the fixture.
“Let’s be honest, when the British and Irish Lions were here in 2021 the situation was far from ideal and the results didn’t do justice to the traditional tour concept,” said Dobson.
“Due to it being played during the time of the Covid pandemic, that Lions tour was an unsatisfactory product. The teams were in a bubble, we had players in quarantine, the games were played in front of empty stadiums. And all the local franchise teams took heavy hidings. The Lions won their games by 60 points or more.
“If traditional tours are to have value we, meaning the South African clubs the All Blacks will face on this trip, need to win a game. We can’t just roll over and have our tummies tickled. If that happens again this is not going to work, and the concept of the traditional tour will be under threat and hard to sustain for future visits of teams like the All Blacks.”
The Greatest Rivalry series will be contested every four years, with the Springboks due in New Zealand in 2030 and the All Blacks coming back here in 2034. So if the local sides are competitive, the Stormers will not have to wait another 50 years before they face the All Blacks again, which has been the gap since the Cape team last played the All Blacks as Western Province.
“This is not just another game for us, when it first came out it was the wrong time and we felt it would stuff up our pre-season. But then it became clear to me that the players desperately want to play in this game, and as the game has approached the magnitude of it has just got bigger and bigger.
“So we divided the pre-season into portions. We’ve been back for three to four weeks, with the specific goal of preparing for the All Black game, and then the players will have a week off after this game before we resume the preparations for the URC season.
“We feel we have the responsibility to our history, to the memory of the famous win over the All Blacks in 1976, to give this game a full go and not hold back. We had two of the players from that 1976 team, Bossie Clarke and Peter Whipp, in to address the players, and it was quite inspirational. 1976 was quite a power year in our country, quite away from the rugby that was played that year.”
The Stormers captain Ruhan Nel backed up what Dobson said about the hunger the players have to play in Friday’s game and the desire to give a good account of themselves.
“This is something that most of us won’t face again. I am 35 now, so it is unreal for me to get a chance to face the All Blacks,” said Nel.
“‘Brannas’ (Deon Fourie) has faced them in a World Cup final, but this is such an incredibly special occasion and we won’t do ourselves justice or the All Blacks justice if we don’t actually compete. We want to honour the occasion, to get out of this what we want and also what they want. It is quite a thing to be playing the All Blacks in what is effectively the first game of our season.”
Whether the Stormers will be cohesive enough to give the All Blacks a proper game this early ij the season remains to be seen, and Dobson was the first to admit that.
“Yes, it is going to be a huge challenge for us to be clinically accurate when we have had so much time off. Ideally we should have played a warmup game before this, but needs as needs must, this is the situation we are in and the mental aspect will be a huge part of our challenge.”