The DHL Stormers are travelling to Glasgow for a quarter-final, excited by the chance to win their first Vodacom URC playoff on the road. DYLAN JACK reports.
The fifth-placed DHL Stormers will travel to face the Glasgow Warriors (4th) at Scotstoun Stadium on Saturday night.
Having played all six of their previous URC playoffs in Cape Town, the Stormers are facing the challenge of a first quarter-final on the road in the competition.
The Stormers tasted defeat in their last two visits to Glasgow, but John Dobson says that his team is fired up to prove they can win big playoffs without home comforts.
“It’s a fair fourth versus fifth clash in terms of results, history and everything. It’s always a tough one,” Dobson said.
“We’ve got unfinished business up there. We’ve played two really tough games up there where things haven’t gone our way. It’s a record that we want to put straight.
“It’s where we deserve to be. Glasgow play a nice brand of rugby. They are loaded with Scottish internationals. So it will be a good test, but we are up for it.”
A four-game winless tour last November put the Stormers on the back foot at the beginning of the season.
While they bounced back to finish fifth, matching their win rate from the previous two URC campaigns, the Stormers have had to grit out games and have lacked a bit of the freedom they played with when they enjoyed a home run through the playoffs.
Still, Dobson sees the opportunity in travelling for a playoff and says that having to claw their way up the table has made the squad feel like they deserve to be part of it.
“If we look at the project and where we were, we are quite pleased to be in the playoffs and stay in the Champions Cup next season,” Dobson said.
“We would love to play at DHL Stadium, but for this team to really progress and become what we want to, we have to win these games on the road.
“In a funny way, I am welcoming it. It’s good for us. Ironically, we’ve gone 12 from 18 in all three years. Our win ratio is exactly the same.
“Since we got back from that early season tour, I said to the team, it feels like we have had a knife to our throat for a large part of the season. That adds pressure. The fact that we punched through that to finish fifth is good.
“It feels like there is an opportunity here, rather than a threat. I don’t feel like we are under massive pressure. We are excited about going overseas for a few weeks.”
The Stormers’ previous trip to Glasgow kicked off their winless tour, as they suffered a 20-9 defeat in a game where they lost Evan Roos and Joseph Dweba to yellow cards and struggled to put a dent on the scoreboard.
However, with Manie Libbok and Frans Malherbe making the journey this time around – and buoyed by getting nine points from their last two games in the north against Dragons and Connacht – the Stormers are confident they will be able to banish the ghosts of that performance.
“We were a bit thinned out when we were last there in November. In terms of our evolution, we are a better squad, considering that in November we went zero from four on tour.
“I feel like we are better equipped for this trip. Guys like Manie and Frans are world-class players, so it is great for us to have them.
“When we were last there, everything went wrong, in terms of our set-piece, the yellow cards, we dropped a kick-off. It was just a car crash.
“We are not going there daunted by our previous experience. In fact, there is a little bit of optimism. It’s four versus five, so there’s not much between us. It’s game on.”
Photo: Kian Abdullah/Huw Evans Agency/Gallo Images
