John Dobson confident Stormers can get out of ‘hole’ they are in

Stormers director of rugby, John Dobson, says they can get out of the hole they currently find themselves in the United Rugby Championship.

It has not been a campaign for the books for the Cape-based franchise in the URC; it has had plenty of hiccups that have disrupted their charge on the points table.

Performances that have fallen below their standards have seen the Stormers lose six games this season, with the latest a 27-21 defeat to Welsh side Ospreys last weekend at the Cape Town Stadium. The defeat dealt a blow to the Stormers’ push to move up the table to the top four spots.

They are currently in sixth place with 40 points, while the Ospreys are on their heels with the same number of points. The concerning part for the Stormers’ playoff aspirations is that there are four teams, Edinburgh, Connacht, Ulster, and Lions, all on 39 points.

“We got ourselves into a hole”

The situation the Stormers are in is one Dobson acknowledges is not ideal.

“We’ve got ourselves into a bit of a hole, we want to get ourselves out of it; we have done it before and we can do it again,” Dobson told the media.

“It’s all started with the tour (to Europe early in the season). If we had got the two wins at Cardiff and Benetton, we wouldn’t be having this discussion now.

“So we have been catching up this whole season. The Ospreys loss took it down another notch in terms of the pressure on us,” he said.

No changing of the game plan

The Stormers will take on the top-of-the-table Leinster on Saturday at the Cape Town Stadium (kick-off 7pm). Dobson described last weekend’s performance against Ospreys as their worst of the season, lamenting their execution.

Heading to the Leinster game, Dobson said they won’t change their game plan because of the situation they are in. He insisted they would focus on better execution.

“We can’t change our game model just because we feel the pressure, we have just got to execute it better,” Dobson said.

“Our game model is our game model; it’s just about doing it better. What was wrong with the execution of the game model last week was that we were too loose.

“We are not going to be suddenly entirely set-piece based, and don’t want the ball or be a multi-phase team and give penalties. Our game model is not going to change, we just have to be better at it,” he said.