It would have been illuminating to have an insight into what was going through the mind of DHL Stormers director of rugby John Dobson as the absorbing end to the Vodacom United Rugby Championship regular season played itself out this past Saturday afternoon.
Dobson was always very confident that his team could handle the Hollywoodbets Sharks in what for a long time, up until Benetton’s shock win in Treviso over Glasgow Warriors in the penultimate round, looked the Stormers’ likely opponents in their quarterfinal. The Sharks have been well short of a gallop and while every week it is anticipated that they will put it right, that just isn’t happening.
While they got what they were looking for against the Scarlets in their final league game, they didn’t produce anything to challenge Dobson’s conviction that even at Hollywoodbets Kings Park the Sharks are very beatable. He’s right too, and had the Stormers been heading to Durban in two weeks time it would have been hard not to make them favourites on current form.
But they’re not heading up the coast, instead they will be heading across the equator on Friday as they make an early start to their preparations for the following Friday’s Finals Series game at the Scotstoun. They lost there in the corresponding quarterfinal last year so it is understandable that it was the trip the Stormers wanted to avoid, at least before Glasgow suddenly hit a dip that started with a 52-0 loss to Leinster in the Investec Champions Cup six weeks ago.
GLASGOW’S FORM HAD CHANGED
DOBSON’S MIND
However, Dobson admitted after the 34-24 win over Cardiff that secured his team a fifth placed finish that his thinking had changed in the preceding week, mainly directed by Glasgow’s comprehensive defeat to Benetton.
“A few weeks ago I really wanted us to be going to Durban to be playing the Sharks, but that has changed, I am now quite positive about a trip to Glasgow,” said Dobson.
But he was talking a full 24 hours before the Glasgow game against Leinster, where they were highly competitive and where even in defeat the reigning champions should have gained plenty of confidence. Given that the game came just after the one in Durban, where the Sharks were so abjectly disappointing given the resources they have at their disposal, Dobson might well have gone to bed on Saturday night wishing that he had engineered something against Cardiff that would have sent his team to Kings Park rather than Scotstoun.
