Stormers to fly flag high in Clermont
• Cape team should be sitting at the top table of world club rugby —
Gqeberha’s newly adopted team, the Stormers, must show they belong at world club rugby’s top table when they face French outfit Clermont Auvergne in the Heineken Champions Cup on Saturday, coach John Dobson says.
After beating the Welsh Dragons in a United Rugby Championship (URC) clash at Nelson Mandela Bay Stadium on Saturday, the Cape franchise flew to France on Monday for their opening Champions Cup game. The URC champions are determined to keep SA’s flag flying high in Europe’s top tournament in what will be a hostile environment in Clermont.
“This is a statement game for us, to show the Stormers should sit at the top table of world club rugby as URC champions,” Dobson said.
“It really is a big game for us, to show what we want to do.
“I have heard playing at Clermont is one of the most incredible rugby experiences you can have. “We are incredibly excited about playing in the Champions Cup.
“We want to fly the Stormers flag high in this prestigious competition. We want to show who we are and the style of rugby we play. It suits us that we play our brand against Clermont.”
Dobson said he did not have any major injury problems ahead of the French clash.
“The Stormers have a pretty happy and confident dressing room and we don’t have many
injuries,” he said. “The key for me was not using household Stormers names who played for us in the past two weeks. We got the 10 points at the same time.
“A couple of guys will become available again who we did not choose against the Scarlets and Dragons in our previous games.
“We have done a really good thing in creating a big squad and we used as many players as we could in the period.
“Now is the time we must get some cohesion by playing our best team week in and week out. I think we got enough out of these past two games to be confident.
“That was a poor second half, especially the last 15 or 20 minutes against the Dragons.
“But we should not take away from some of the rugby we played and log points we got.
“We have had a good look at Clermont; we see opportunities there to probably play more as we played in the first halves against the Scarlets and Dragons,” he said.
“We think that our rugby could be effective against them.
Maybe I made too many changes too soon or mixed the side too much in the past two games. Or maybe we were getting a bit loose because we were seduced by the score we had on the scoreboard.
“There is no question we have had two poor second halves. I’m not too worried because we come off a massive track record of fighting to the end and scoring bonus point tries.
“I think if there was real trouble our team would stand up,” Dobson said.