Stormers have ‘unfinished business’ with Glasgow Warriors — Dobson

Stormers coach John Dobson is full of confidence ahead of their massive United Rugby Championship (URC) quarter-final clash against Glasgow Warriors in Scotland on Saturday night, admitting that they had unfinished business in the city.

After two fantastic seasons in the URC that saw the Stormers finish second and third on the log at the end of the pool stage that led to them hosting all of their playoffs, they ended fifth this time round and will now play their first away playoff match in the competition.

ALSO READ: Manie the ‘magician’ is Stormers’ danger man, say Glasgow Warriors

It will also be the third time that the teams have met at the Scotstoun Stadium in the tournament, with the Stormers losing both their pool stage games 24-17 and 20-9 in the past two seasons, although Dobson believes they will be better suited to it at this time of year this time round.

Different experience

“We are looking forward to going there at this time of the year. We know Scotstoun should be quite different in June to what it is in November and January, which is when we have played them there before,” explained Dobson.

“We have unfinished business up there, we have had two really tough games there where things haven’t gone our way. Glasgow play a really nice style of rugby. But we are well prepared for it.

“Basically, after we lost at home to the Ospreys we knew we would be traveling for this stage of the competition, and we have prepared accordingly. A lot of focus on our recent two match overseas tour was on what is to come now.”

Dobson is also happy with the match-up against the Scottish side, due to them finishing close to each other on the log at the end of the pool stage, while he also believes that the team will grow from this experience of playing a knockout game away from home, especially with the logistical challenges.

Fair match-up

“It is a fair match-up this one, it is fourth against fifth, and as those positions will indicate, we are two quite evenly matched teams. We are probably where we both deserve to be, fourth against fifth,” said Dobson.

“It is not like number one against number eight, where there is big pressure and expectation on the top ranked team, who are expected to win. And as I said on Saturday night, it is an important part of our growth to be playing in an away playoff game.

“It is challenging and you can imagine what it does to the training week but we do have the main squad still here and flying out on Tuesday afternoon and we are following pretty much the pattern of the last two tours so we are used to it.”