DHL Stormers director of rugby John Dobson may have been frustrated after his team’s 29-21 win over the Dragons, but it is unlikely that he would have been surprised to be frustrated. His team had spoken all week about the good Dragons defence and how difficult they are to play against.
What he got was what he expected - a tigerish Welsh team that is near the bottom of the Vodacom URC log but hasn’t been involved in many big blowouts this season and has generally been competitive against even the best teams in the competition.
And when he says his team was “seduced by space” in their rush to put the Welsh side away, that’s not something he wouldn’t have foreseen either.
The Stormers dominated the game but being just 14-7 behind at halftime when they were ranked 15th and their opponents were second would have given the Dragons the oxygen to keep going in the knowledge that they had nothing to lose and a close result in Cape Town would be a step up for them.
The slight hint of a return to the over-playing that might have tripped up the Stormers building up to and during their three game blip before they shelved it to beat the Vodacom Bulls in Pretoria in mid-March aside, there shouldn’t have been too much cause for angst after Sunday’s game.
STORMERS COMFORTABLY AVOIDED CAESAR'S FATE
It was Mark Antony who in Hamlet’s ‘Julius Ceasar” warned the Roman emperor to “beware the Ides of March”, meaning 15 March, the halfway point of the month. For the Stormers there was much to beware of when they headed to Pretoria for their 14 March north/south derby, but they comfortably avoided anything resembling Caesar's fate.
That has ensured they are comfortably in the top two on the log as they embark on a four game home run that the Dragons game started, and given that they did bank all five log points from that game, it was job done.
Now comes Edinburgh, who have been fortified by the return of some Scotland internationals for Saturday’s game at the DHL Stadium, and like they did in the buildup to the Dragons game, the Stormers will be going out of their way to let everyone know, as well no doubt as convince themselves, that they won’t be underestimating the lesser of the two Scottish teams.
HAVE A SCORE TO SETTLE WITH EDINBURGH
And for good reason. This game will be played in Cape Town, where the Stormers boast a good record against the team from the Scottish capital, but the last time the sides met was in Edinburgh in October 2024 and it was a thoroughly forgettable day for the Cape team. They lost 38-7, and it was against an Edinburgh team that, like now, had been written off after a heavy defeat (this time 54-17 at the hands of the Lions in Johannesburg).
But although they will respect Edinburgh and even more so the Connacht team that will visit Cape Town in April and is currently hovering on the fringes of top eight qualification, the road the Stormers are on is leading to 25 April. That’s when they host the current log leaders Glasgow in what, if all goes according to plan for both teams, should be a top of the table shoot-out.
GLASGOW GAME WILL REQUIRE A PERFECT PERFORMANCE
The match is scheduled for early afternoon (13.45), which is a pity for games later in the afternoon usually draw the biggest crowds and that clash will deserve a full house.
Of course, in addition to the Edinburgh and Connacht game, the Stormers also have an Investec Champions Cup round of 16 tie against Toulon on Easter Saturday to look forward to and they will be hoping to win that so they can play a quarterfinal the following week. It seems unlikely given Glasgow’s current form, but that quarterfinal could even be at home against the Bulls.
But there are many reasons that it is in the Glasgow clash that the Stormers should be aiming to perfect a game that is still far from perfect, and for several reasons. One of those is obviously Glasgow’s rich vein of form exemplified by their statement win over Leinster at the weekend. Another is that if the Stormers go unbeaten until then, they will be playing for the top of the log position.
The game also starts a sequence of three very tough games to finish the Stormers’ regular season - after the Glasgow clash they go away to Ulster and Cardiff. A win over Glasgow will make all the difference to how much pressure they will be under in those games.
FRANCO'S MEN ARE THE CAPE SIDE’S BOGEY TEAM
A third reason, and possibly the biggest one for Dobson, is that Glasgow are the Stormers’ bogey team in the URC. They did win against them in Cape Town in the first season of URC, but that might have been a double edged sword they used that day, for it was that game that prompted the Glasgow bosses to change take and recruit Franco Smith as their head coach the following season.
They haven’t looked back since then, and not only have the Stormers lost every league game they have played against them subsequent to 2021, they have also lost successive quarterfinals at the home ground of Glasgow, the Scotstoun.
The Stormers do need to focus on the here and now or they will become England, who spoke about going to Paris to play for a Grand Slam at the end of the Guinness Six Nations before the competition had even started and ended up going there much closer to the wooden spoon than the top of the log.
But for rugby fans 25 April is one to put in the diary. It is a date that Dobson will hope to become even more significant to his team’s URC challenge than the triumph on the Ides of March (well take away a day) was for his men.