You have to doff your cap to DHL Stormers coach John Dobson - he’s listened to a myriad of excuses from some opposition coaches when their teams have lost to his over the last two seasons, but he simply refuses to go that route himself.
That the Stormers were set back by the logistical problems that saw them fly indirect and later than planned to Exeter for their Heineken Champions Cup quarterfinal against the Exeter Chiefs should hardly be a debate. They tried to talk down that disadvantage in the buildup week, but it didn’t really wash.
It was not so much the flight to England and the circuitous route taken by the Cape squad to their destination that was the issue. As a one-off, they might have been okay. It was more the fact that they undertook the journey not much more than a week after flying home from Dublin, where they drew with the Vodacom United Rugby Championship log leaders, Leinster.
That trip to Dublin came after a bit of a hiatus from traveling and the performance the Stormers produced against a side that was riding the momentum of 19 consecutive wins, should be seen in that context. It was a very different Stormers team that played that night to the one that played at Sandy Park. Not in terms of personnel. The two teams were similar. But in energy.
Dobson was right when he said after the game that it was the best Exeter performance he’d seen in a long time judging from the videos he had studied in his preparation for the game. And Rob Baxter’s men knew what they needed to do too: Out-energise their travel fatigued opponents from the off. That is exactly what they did.
Dobson though wasn’t going to use the travel obstacle as an excuse and instead pinpointed early defensive issues.
“What worried me a bit in that first half was that we weren’t folding on defence like we should have been,” said Dobson.
“We looked flat. I thought we handled the cards we were dealt in terms of travel as best we could. We did everything we could. We travelled in three or four different parties and got in late on Wednesday. I just think Exeter were so sublime. It was a performance of yore, when they were European champions. I can’t really extrapolate that onto the travel.”
His admission that the Stormers were flat though says a lot, not that it needed to be pointed out. The Stormers certainly didn’t play with their usual energy, and the imperative for them now is to find a way to prevent another flight counting against them. They fly home to Cape Town now to face Munster and will require an energy injection, or perhaps a team rotation/shake-up, in order to ensure they are not also flat against the Irish team.
Another limp performance, where they are a yard behind where they usually are in getting to the gainline on defence and attack, could be costly against Munster as Munster are not as bad as their recent defeat to the Cell C Sharks in the Champions Cup might suggest.
The Stormers need to beat Munster if they want to make sure of second place on the URC log, with their remaining game after that being their clash with Benetton in Stellenbosch the following week. Ulster are pushing hard for that third place and while two wins will be enough for the Stormers to stay ahead, Ulster will cancel out the two points they lead by if they trip up as the men from Belfast do have an easier run in the last two games.
Apart from re-energising, something that is going to be a tough ask after all the travel, the Stormers will also need to get used to playing without their ace fetcher Deon Fourie, who was sorely missed in the quarterfinal. It was the absence of the man who normally is responsible for slowing down opposition ball that saw the Chiefs be so dominant in that first half, where they were able to put their phases together and mount up the Stormers’ tackle count to an alarming degree.
Dobson confirmed that the eye socket injury that prevented Fourie, the man of the match in the round of 16 tie against Harlequins, from playing against Exeter will keep him out “for the next few weeks”. That means he is unlikely to play in the remaining league games, but will be back for the URC playoffs next month.
The Stormers do have another excellent player in the Fourie mould on their books in the form of Nama Xaba but Xaba has been out with an injury for a while. Dobson will be hoping that being back at the DHL Stadium and in front of the passionate Stormers supporters will give the team the lift they need because what the Exeter experience should have drummed home to him and his charges is the importance of avoiding travel in the play-off stages of any competition.
If the Stormers don’t finish second their chances of making a second successive URC final will be considerably diminished.