John Dobson says the DHL Stormers must make home advantage count in the next two Vodacom URC games against Edinburgh and Ulster in Cape Town. DYLAN JACK reports.
The DHL Stormers will host Edinburgh and Ulster over successive weekends in the Vodacom URC, before their big Champions Cup playoff against defending European champions La Rochelle.
Having been South Africa’s best performers in the URC over the past two seasons, the Stormers currently sit in ninth place, but will need to make the most of a home run, with just four points separating them from Saturday’s fourth-placed opponents.
“Just looking at La Rochelle, their results, both tightheads weigh collectively over 300kgs, that’s very much an upside game. Nobody really expects us to knock them out,” Dobson said.
“But these next two games are absolutely critical. It’s still very congested between third and 10th on the table, but the Stormers being ninth on the log is not where we want to be. It’s not the standard we have set over the last couple of years.
“So whilst La Rochelle will be a nice occasion and a big shootout, this is do-or-die stuff in terms of us moving up the log. These next two are pressure games.”
The Stormers suffered a 40-22 loss to the Vodacom Bulls in Pretoria before the two-week break in the season for the Six Nations.
“Loftus confirmed some of the stuff that we have known about ourselves for a while,” Dobson said, looking back at the loss. “Our maul defence is either really good or we travel, we get done. At Loftus, it was three mauls and about four penalties.
“Every game we’ve lost in the URC – including last year’s final – has been because of issues with our maul and contestable game. The Bulls got on top of us at the mauls, they scored those two maul tries. The other issue was in the second half, we didn’t protect our kick receivers.
“We aren’t going to win the URC or in the sharp end of the tournament if we don’t fix those two things.”
Photo: Grant Pitcher/Gallo Images
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Src: sarugbymag.co.za
