The DHL Stormers haven’t faced many situations during the Vodacom United Rugby Championship era that were as desperate as the one they would have been in had they lost to Leinster at the weekend.
A second consecutive defeat at their home ground of the DHL Stadium (actually it would have been three if you factor in La Rochelle) would have left them leaving for their two-match URC tour fighting for their place in next season’s Investec Champions Cup. On top of that, with the Stormers not boasting a great record overseas, it would have plunged them into a potential confidence crisis, and at just the wrong time.
The Stormers went on tour in November and lost all four games, but at least that was at the start of the season, when there was enough time to rectify poor performance and bounce back. This is something the Cape team did quite well until last week’s unexpected home defeat to the Ospreys which has made it an uphill battle for the Stormers to match the previous two seasons by clinching a top-four place and a home playoff.
This time around, there is no margin for error, at least if the Stormers hope to still challenge for the top four. A Championship Cup place seems more secure given that the other teams in the logjam between fifth and 11th are all playing each other over the remaining three rounds.
“The previous tour was at the start of the season and we knew we would have an opportunity to rectify things when we came home,” said Dobson after his team’s 42-12 win over Leinster.
“It is different now, there is no room for error, as the loss to the Ospreys knocked us properly. We are now under massive pressure from a points situation. The devastation of that result against Ospreys was that we could have finished that weekend two points behind the fourth-placed Bulls and strongly in the running for a home playoff. That’s pretty unrecoverable now. Whereas we might have been in a situation where we could look at the game against Connacht in Galway and think it wouldn’t be the end of the world if we lost, now it’s a must-win tour.”
VERY DIFFERENT TOUR TO NOVEMBER TRIP
It will be a different tour to the one undertaken by the Stormers in November in two important aspects - firstly, the weather they are likely to encounter now in comparison with November, and secondly, this time the Stormers will be fully loaded as their Springboks will be touring.
“We are taking our Springboks and this will be a different mindset from the first tour. We will go full metal jacket to win every game,” said the Stormers director of rugby.
“We have to be better in northern conditions than we have been. But we’ve made improvements this season, particularly around contestables, which is important if you want to win over there. We won the contestable kicks against Leinster and I am pleased about that.”
The conditions should also suit the Stormers, with Europe now heading into spring, whereas last November it was an autumn tour.
“The last time we went to Galway a few seasons ago (it was a January game) we had to train with snow falling and being driven by an icy wind, we are assuming it will be different for us there this time and the two grounds we play on should suit our style, perhaps more than our home field helped us in the conditions we encountered in the final last year and last week against the Ospreys.”
DID WELL TO GET OUT OF THEIR HOLE
The Stormers start the tour with a clash with the Dragons in Newport on Friday, 10 May, and then proceed to Galway to face Connacht a week later. The Stormers lost by one point in a game where the result was impacted by refereeing decisions on their last visit to Galway in early 2022.
The Stormers do have their confidence back, but Dobson did see signs of the same things going wrong in the first half that went wrong against the Ospreys.
“The way it finished (with the Stormers scoring two late tries), I thought we had our pomp back,” said Dobson.
“We are not going to change how we play, we just all learned last week to be a bit more circumspect. You could see we still lacked a bit of confidence and some of the same stuff was there in the first half. But the way we fought through that, makes me very proud. The team responded.
“Physically, the way we carried was very, very good. The corner we found ourselves in didn’t inspire confidence so it is a massive credit to the guys that we fought through it. I thought it was a really compelling performance.”
Another thing that helps the Stormers on this potentially season-defining tour is that they have a week at home without a game to prepare for and will fly out fresh, which is one of the upsides of the Stormers not being involved in the last four playoff stage of the Champions Cup.