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Dobson on challenge of making Cape Town Stadium a Stormers ‘fortress’
“Newlands had all sorts of ghosts and traditions and we could feel Newlands, so that is going to take a bit of time for us."
The Stormers during a training session at the Cape Town Stadium – their new home, which hasn’t brought them much success. Picture: Grant Pitcher/Gallo Images
The Stormers are hoping for a change in fortunes at the Cape Town Stadium when they take on the Sharks in their United Rugby Championship clash on Saturday afternoon (kickoff 5:05pm).
The Stormers have lost more games than they have won at the stadium since making it their new home after leaving Newlands, and they want to improve on both their previous performances and results at the ground.
“We haven’t had great results here. If you look at our performances here the Lions game was really poor, but some of our other losses were really close, the two Rainbow Cup games were decided after the hooter,” explained Stormers head coach John Dobson.
“We would like to build up a good string of results here. Every coach wants their stadium to become a fortress, so we definitely want to do better here, especially in front of the fans than we did last time against the Lions and I think that’s quite important to us.
“People must remember that it is a new stadium for us, Newlands had all sorts of ghosts and traditions and we could feel Newlands, so that is going to take a bit of time for us, but it is important that we start heading in the right direction.”
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Last weekend’s match against the Sharks in Durban ended in a thrilling draw after the Stormers fought back superbly in the final 12 minutes of the match and although they are now playing in front of their home fans, it is going to be another tough encounter against arguably SA’s strongest URC team.
“It’s brilliant to play here and it’s going to be a great occasion. We feel we let the people down in our last game here against the Lions, so we want to fix that,” said Dobson.
“We also know this weekend’s match will be a harder challenge. We were rank outsiders last week and we caught the Sharks by surprise and they will be wounded. So it is going to be a high level game in more demanding conditions.
“There won’t be any easy outs, if you make a mistake there are going to be consequences. So it is going to be a pretty intense, tight game.”
