Dobson’s Stormers will keep fighting for glory

John Dobson. Inpho

As the DHL Stormers head into the Vodacom United Rugby Championship play-offs for the fourth consecutive season, coach John Dobson is quite clear about what this moment means to them.

“With everything we’ve been through, this has been our toughest season yet. And that’s why I feel that reaching this point is one of our best accomplishments,” says Dobson ahead of Friday’s quarter-final with the Glasgow Warriors in Scotland.

For a team that has risen to every single challenge thrown their way since the inaugural Vodacom United Rugby Championship and excelled to the levels that it has with two appearances in the final and one Grand Final trophy, this was indeed a season that has pushed them to new limits.

Losing five of their first seven matches, losing the talismanic Steven Kitshoff with a career-ending neck injury, losing the equally inspirational Deon Fourie and Frans Malherbe to injury, losing Damian Willemse and Neethling Fouché to questionable red cards late in the competition, saying goodbye to Brok Harris and at one stage having the majority of their Springboks unavailable to them has indeed tested the resolve of this team.

“If you’d said to me at the beginning of the season everything that would go wrong, I’d be very pleased to be where we are right now,” says Dobson. “It started out as our first season with some stability in our new ownership. But then a whole set of other challenges came our way. We’ve had a knife to our throats this season. It’s been nuts.”

And yet, the team has responded as it always does.

“We’d built our empire around players like Steven and Frans but now we have Vernon Matongo and Sazi Sandi which is great for our programme. The rugby we produced in our last four home games, which we had to win and the style of rugby we still played was incredible. We went up to Loftus Versfeld with none of our biggest stars and managed to win there. In terms of our long-term goals, that’s all very positive.”

The reality is that this is a team that has become comfortable in the discomfort. A team that knows how to fight and actually seems to relish it.

“If there is something expected of us or a challenge put to us, then we’ll fight for that. I think other teams in the competition know that about us as well,” says loose forward Marcel Theunissen.

“In life you have to go to places that make you uncomfortable because that’s where you grow,” says Fouché.

There were times when this was a season written all over the face of Dobson. It came through in his impassioned plea in interviews to keep believing in a team that will fight to the end, he said. It bubbled to the surface in his admonishing of his players for their defensive lapses late in the competition, and to which they responded. And it was there for all to see in his tears as the likes of Kitshoff and Harris ended their careers, and on his watch over a team that is quite literally his life.

“The emotional investment in this team is so high. For all of us. It’s not just a job. It’s about who we are as a group. We’re the sum of our parts in this team.”

It’s this passion Dobson and the Stormers will take into yet another challenge – a tough away fixture against the defending champions.

“Given the momentum we’ve got now and the belief in this group, I’m expecting us to be extremely competitive against Glasgow. It’s a massive reset and refocus for us now. We start from scratch, and we’ve got to be at the final.”

Given what they’ve been through and how far they’ve come, would being knocked out now be a disappointment?

Dobson doesn’t even hesitate in his response.

“This team never disappoints me.”

FRIDAY

Glasgow Warriors v DHL Stormers @ Scotstoun Stadium, Glasgow – KO 7.35pm IRE & UK/8.35pm ITA & SA

Referee: Andrew Brace (IRFU, 106th league game)

AR 1: Ben Whitehouse (WRU) AR 2: Ben Breakspear (WRU)

TMO: Olly Hodges (IRFU)

Live on: Premier Sports, TG4, SuperSport, Flo Rugby & URC.tv