The Cheetahs is part of the Stormers player development program. Cheetahs poach our Matie players and coach. Then we poach them back.Chilli wrote: Thu May 19, 2022 6:53 amThey disgust me.FalseBayFC wrote: Wed May 18, 2022 5:20 pmThey borrowed Wilmar Arnoldi from the Cheetahs for the Leicester match. Andre-Hugo Venter from Grey Bloem is their other hooker. They have no shame in their poaching.
We have the same relationship with the Eastern Cape guys.OomStruisbaai wrote: Thu May 19, 2022 7:13 amThe Cheetahs is part of the Stormers player development program. Cheetahs poach our Matie players and coach. Then we poach them back.Chilli wrote: Thu May 19, 2022 6:53 amThey disgust me.FalseBayFC wrote: Wed May 18, 2022 5:20 pm
They borrowed Wilmar Arnoldi from the Cheetahs for the Leicester match. Andre-Hugo Venter from Grey Bloem is their other hooker. They have no shame in their poaching.
Official nowFalseBayFC wrote: Tue May 17, 2022 4:33 pm Dweba confirmed for Stormers. Finally they can retire Scarra! Great signing for the Capies!
Nice. Engelbrecht, Roos, Dayimani trio has a nice balance to it.
Don't forget Nama Xaba. He's developing into a great jackaller too.Blake wrote: Fri May 27, 2022 9:35 amNice. Engelbrecht, Roos, Dayimani trio has a nice balance to it.
Deon Fourie has been immense this season, but a 36 year old openside is on borrowed time. Willie is also strong on the ground so should help plug that gap when Deon retires/gets injured.
Dink die een so beter gewerk het.
Future Bok captain. Add Theunissen, Ernst van Rhyn , Junior leaders and Junior Pokomela.FalseBayFC wrote: Fri May 27, 2022 10:21 amDon't forget Nama Xaba. He's developing into a great jackaller too.Blake wrote: Fri May 27, 2022 9:35 amNice. Engelbrecht, Roos, Dayimani trio has a nice balance to it.
Deon Fourie has been immense this season, but a 36 year old openside is on borrowed time. Willie is also strong on the ground so should help plug that gap when Deon retires/gets injured.
average joe wrote: Fri May 27, 2022 12:55 pmDink die een so beter gewerk het.
Fokon poeiermelk oorals.
fyndraai is weg. Ha haaverage joe wrote: Fri May 27, 2022 12:55 pmDink die een so beter gewerk het.
Fokon poeiermelk oorals.
One of the key featurea of the Stormers attacking game this season has been the excellent linking play of the loosies. Xaba, Dayamani, Roos and Pokomela have been outstanding. Dayamani has been particularly good here. Interestingly he is a Jewish kid. Danie Craven had a superstition about a Bok side with a Jewish player. He believed a Springbok team with a Jewish player would invariably win.OomStruisbaai wrote: Fri May 27, 2022 1:32 pmFuture Bok captain. Add Theunissen, Ernst van Rhyn , Junior leaders and Junior Pokomela.FalseBayFC wrote: Fri May 27, 2022 10:21 amDon't forget Nama Xaba. He's developing into a great jackaller too.Blake wrote: Fri May 27, 2022 9:35 am
Nice. Engelbrecht, Roos, Dayimani trio has a nice balance to it.
Deon Fourie has been immense this season, but a 36 year old openside is on borrowed time. Willie is also strong on the ground so should help plug that gap when Deon retires/gets injured.
The Stormers have real depth in the frontrow and loose forwards.
Our issue is at hooker and lock.OomStruisbaai wrote: Fri May 27, 2022 1:32 pmFuture Bok captain. Add Theunissen, Ernst van Rhyn , Junior leaders and Junior Pokomela.FalseBayFC wrote: Fri May 27, 2022 10:21 amDon't forget Nama Xaba. He's developing into a great jackaller too.Blake wrote: Fri May 27, 2022 9:35 am
Nice. Engelbrecht, Roos, Dayimani trio has a nice balance to it.
Deon Fourie has been immense this season, but a 36 year old openside is on borrowed time. Willie is also strong on the ground so should help plug that gap when Deon retires/gets injured.
The Stormers have real depth in the frontrow and loose forwards.
Many might have thought Saturday’s Vodacom United Rugby Championship final could be the only chance the DHL Stormers will have of winning a major international club competition in a while, but the upshot of their 18-13 win over the Vodacom Bulls might change that.
Already before the URC decider there was talk of potential equity partners in negotiations to be part of the future of the premier Cape team driving up the financial value of their offers due to the way the Stormers had captivated the imagination during their extended winning run.
The American investors who were trying to get into bed with the Stormers a few years back and then eventually hooked up with the Sharks, offered R112-million. That number apparently has shifted to R180-million in recent times, and the talk after the Stormers’ win in the final is that it could go closer to R200-million.
Of course, as the Sharks might in some ways be finding, money doesn’t automatically buy you success. And what those at the coalface of the negotiations with potential partners might have learned from the Sharks experience is that it is important to get the right fit. If investors are going to call the shots, they also must have a feel for the game.
What John Dobson has proven with the Stormers over the past few months, with the win in the DHL Stadium final proving the cherry on the top as the franchise broke their duck at this level of competition, is that while money can’t automatically buy you success, creating the right culture certainly can.
And in that sense, the Stormers and Cape rugby as a whole have a lot to thank Dobson for. During the dark days of the internecine off-field strife at WP, Dobson had the difficult job of almost having to double his role with that of CEO and director of rugby. It was up to him alone to manage the upstairs, meaning the administrative politics, while also keeping his eyes on the contracting and the welfare of his players.
"WE DIDN'T KNOW IF WE WOULD BE PAID"
Through all of that, there was also a money problem that inevitably created a strain on the Stormers’ resource base, and the names of the decorated marquee players who left the Cape during the period of strife are well known and include a Springbok World Cup winning captain and a recent World Rugby Player of the Year.
Dobson praised those who remained loyal, but they in turn have praised him.
“It was chaos, there was so much uncertainty and I don’t think many people on the outside realise how tough it was. For a while we weren’t sure whether we were going to be paid,” said the Stormers replacement prop Neethling Fouche after Saturday’s final.
For Dobson, like after the semifinal win over Ulster that set up the home final, winning the title was a surreal experience.
“When I think back, I remember setting the goals for the season and underlining to the players just how important it was for us to get into the European Champions Cup, that was a our big aim as we knew how lucrative that competition is and at the start it was our only focus,” recalls Dobson.
“Then when we started getting a run of success, we began to think about possibly winning the South African Shield. Compared to where we were, and what the expectations were at the start, that in itself felt like an almost unbelievable achievement, to be the top local team. It was only relatively recently that we realised we could actually win the main prize. This all feels so surreal and so unbelievable.”
REMEMBERING THE UNCERTAIN BEGINNINGS
Dobson said he remembered the first week of the competition, when his team was starting out against Benetton in Treviso, being on a train outside Venice and hearing that, because of WP being placed under administration and all the financial insecurity, his team might be replaced in the URC by the Cheetahs.
“Somebody phoned me and there was talk of us being pulled out of the URC and being replaced by the Cheetahs. In fact a journalist on the train asked me about it. So it’s an amazing story,” said the Stormers coach.
Dobson was humble in victory, pointing out that if it were not for one or two tries during the campaign, the Bulls or Sharks would have finished ahead of the Stormers in the South African Shield. But he said his own belief was there and the foundation for this triumph first started being laid when his team started to change their template away from being the set-piece, forward orientated side they were towards the end of the Super Rugby era into a side that played a more complete, vibrant game.
“People tended to forget this, but in last year’s Rainbow Cup we finished second (in the South African pool). We lost twice to the Bulls in that competition but by the narrowest of margins. We lost narrowly to the Sharks in Cape Town but then beat them in Durban. We weren’t as bad then as people were making out.
“Neither were we necessarily as good in this campaign as some might be making out. It could easily have been the Sharks or the Bulls who won the conference and finished ahead of us on the log. There were some incredibly tight games and a few tries here or there could have changed the whole complexion of where we stood. So much came down to that final league game against Scarlets in Llanelli, where we won off the last move of the game with a Ruhan Nel try to secure both the Shield and second place.”
NO DENYING THE EXTENT OF THE ACHIEVEMENT
But there can also be no denying Dobson and his team’s achievement, particularly if you compare it to where it all started.
“If I could put it down to something, it’s an unwavering work ethic and joy among our players. It’s just a really good group and we got them to believe in what we were trying to do,” said Dobson.
“If you are sitting as one of the potential investors and see the product that was out there today in terms of crowd, passion, the result on the field, we are obviously going to be a sought-after investment. There is no question that people are going to buy into Western Province Rugby and Stormers rugby now.”
Indeed, and those investors will be buying into a team that now has as its next challenge the Champions Cup, which starts in December. Dobson is under no illusions of the task that faces him, and how much tougher it will be next year given that the Champions Cup participation will mean there won’t be the long gaps between games that there were this season.
“Right now I would place question marks over whether we have the depth to compete in both competitions, so we do need to buy in players and create greater depth. There’s a lot of work to be done in that regard and that work starts now,” said Dobson.
The Stormers will lose one of their star players, fullback Warrick Gelant, but the word close to the ground is that the Stormers have lined up a big-name replacement that will offset that loss. And no, that is not referring to the Cheetahs’ Clayton Blommetjies, an attacking fullback who has signed for WP and will certainly bring attacking flair to the back three depth, but to another player who should have his move to the Cape confirmed shortly.
An area of weakness for the Stormers this year was hooker, where the injuries to Scarra Ntubeni and Andre-Hugo Venter were felt, but both JJ Kotze and Venter have progressed immensely in recent games and Springbok Joseph Dweba is among a clutch of new players that will be available to the Stormers when the new URC season kicks off on 17 September.
Dobson is right when he says his franchise needs more depth, but like the culture and the evolution of the Stormers’ game, the Cape side is also moving in the right direction when it comes to recruitment.
Just think of what they could achieve if they had the $harks resources?OomStruisbaai wrote: Sun Jun 19, 2022 12:30 pm URC trophy in the cupboard.
Dobson on the way forward.
SS
Many might have thought Saturday’s Vodacom United Rugby Championship final could be the only chance the DHL Stormers will have of winning a major international club competition in a while, but the upshot of their 18-13 win over the Vodacom Bulls might change that.
Already before the URC decider there was talk of potential equity partners in negotiations to be part of the future of the premier Cape team driving up the financial value of their offers due to the way the Stormers had captivated the imagination during their extended winning run.
The American investors who were trying to get into bed with the Stormers a few years back and then eventually hooked up with the Sharks, offered R112-million. That number apparently has shifted to R180-million in recent times, and the talk after the Stormers’ win in the final is that it could go closer to R200-million.
Of course, as the Sharks might in some ways be finding, money doesn’t automatically buy you success. And what those at the coalface of the negotiations with potential partners might have learned from the Sharks experience is that it is important to get the right fit. If investors are going to call the shots, they also must have a feel for the game.
What John Dobson has proven with the Stormers over the past few months, with the win in the DHL Stadium final proving the cherry on the top as the franchise broke their duck at this level of competition, is that while money can’t automatically buy you success, creating the right culture certainly can.
And in that sense, the Stormers and Cape rugby as a whole have a lot to thank Dobson for. During the dark days of the internecine off-field strife at WP, Dobson had the difficult job of almost having to double his role with that of CEO and director of rugby. It was up to him alone to manage the upstairs, meaning the administrative politics, while also keeping his eyes on the contracting and the welfare of his players.
"WE DIDN'T KNOW IF WE WOULD BE PAID"
Through all of that, there was also a money problem that inevitably created a strain on the Stormers’ resource base, and the names of the decorated marquee players who left the Cape during the period of strife are well known and include a Springbok World Cup winning captain and a recent World Rugby Player of the Year.
Dobson praised those who remained loyal, but they in turn have praised him.
“It was chaos, there was so much uncertainty and I don’t think many people on the outside realise how tough it was. For a while we weren’t sure whether we were going to be paid,” said the Stormers replacement prop Neethling Fouche after Saturday’s final.
For Dobson, like after the semifinal win over Ulster that set up the home final, winning the title was a surreal experience.
“When I think back, I remember setting the goals for the season and underlining to the players just how important it was for us to get into the European Champions Cup, that was a our big aim as we knew how lucrative that competition is and at the start it was our only focus,” recalls Dobson.
“Then when we started getting a run of success, we began to think about possibly winning the South African Shield. Compared to where we were, and what the expectations were at the start, that in itself felt like an almost unbelievable achievement, to be the top local team. It was only relatively recently that we realised we could actually win the main prize. This all feels so surreal and so unbelievable.”
REMEMBERING THE UNCERTAIN BEGINNINGS
Dobson said he remembered the first week of the competition, when his team was starting out against Benetton in Treviso, being on a train outside Venice and hearing that, because of WP being placed under administration and all the financial insecurity, his team might be replaced in the URC by the Cheetahs.
“Somebody phoned me and there was talk of us being pulled out of the URC and being replaced by the Cheetahs. In fact a journalist on the train asked me about it. So it’s an amazing story,” said the Stormers coach.
Dobson was humble in victory, pointing out that if it were not for one or two tries during the campaign, the Bulls or Sharks would have finished ahead of the Stormers in the South African Shield. But he said his own belief was there and the foundation for this triumph first started being laid when his team started to change their template away from being the set-piece, forward orientated side they were towards the end of the Super Rugby era into a side that played a more complete, vibrant game.
“People tended to forget this, but in last year’s Rainbow Cup we finished second (in the South African pool). We lost twice to the Bulls in that competition but by the narrowest of margins. We lost narrowly to the Sharks in Cape Town but then beat them in Durban. We weren’t as bad then as people were making out.
“Neither were we necessarily as good in this campaign as some might be making out. It could easily have been the Sharks or the Bulls who won the conference and finished ahead of us on the log. There were some incredibly tight games and a few tries here or there could have changed the whole complexion of where we stood. So much came down to that final league game against Scarlets in Llanelli, where we won off the last move of the game with a Ruhan Nel try to secure both the Shield and second place.”
NO DENYING THE EXTENT OF THE ACHIEVEMENT
But there can also be no denying Dobson and his team’s achievement, particularly if you compare it to where it all started.
“If I could put it down to something, it’s an unwavering work ethic and joy among our players. It’s just a really good group and we got them to believe in what we were trying to do,” said Dobson.
“If you are sitting as one of the potential investors and see the product that was out there today in terms of crowd, passion, the result on the field, we are obviously going to be a sought-after investment. There is no question that people are going to buy into Western Province Rugby and Stormers rugby now.”
Indeed, and those investors will be buying into a team that now has as its next challenge the Champions Cup, which starts in December. Dobson is under no illusions of the task that faces him, and how much tougher it will be next year given that the Champions Cup participation will mean there won’t be the long gaps between games that there were this season.
“Right now I would place question marks over whether we have the depth to compete in both competitions, so we do need to buy in players and create greater depth. There’s a lot of work to be done in that regard and that work starts now,” said Dobson.
The Stormers will lose one of their star players, fullback Warrick Gelant, but the word close to the ground is that the Stormers have lined up a big-name replacement that will offset that loss. And no, that is not referring to the Cheetahs’ Clayton Blommetjies, an attacking fullback who has signed for WP and will certainly bring attacking flair to the back three depth, but to another player who should have his move to the Cape confirmed shortly.
An area of weakness for the Stormers this year was hooker, where the injuries to Scarra Ntubeni and Andre-Hugo Venter were felt, but both JJ Kotze and Venter have progressed immensely in recent games and Springbok Joseph Dweba is among a clutch of new players that will be available to the Stormers when the new URC season kicks off on 17 September.
Dobson is right when he says his franchise needs more depth, but like the culture and the evolution of the Stormers’ game, the Cape side is also moving in the right direction when it comes to recruitment.
They, and their money, were chased away with comptem by Zelt.FalseBayFC wrote: Sun Jun 19, 2022 4:53 pmMVM originally approached the Stormers but were rejected.
This success should mean a lot of interest from potential equity partners. It looks like their administration on the WPRFU and Stormers side is stabilizing. Hopefully they make the most of this.Chilli wrote: Mon Jun 20, 2022 6:09 amThey, and their money, were chased away with comptem by Zelt.FalseBayFC wrote: Sun Jun 19, 2022 4:53 pmMVM originally approached the Stormers but were rejected.
Lulz. Always a chuckle going back to page 1 to see what people were thinking!
Credit to Handyman, he called it back in 2020.handyman wrote: Wed Sep 09, 2020 11:50 am It boggles the mind that the biggest and best union in SA with the history, the tradition and the pedigree is run so poorly. Big ups to the players and coaches to rise above it.
Dont forget that the Stormers are under administration by SARU........That would deter any investorFalseBayFC wrote: Mon Jun 20, 2022 6:22 amThis success should mean a lot of interest from potential equity partners. It looks like their administration on the WPRFU and Stormers side is stabilizing. Hopefully they make the most of this.Chilli wrote: Mon Jun 20, 2022 6:09 amThey, and their money, were chased away with comptem by Zelt.FalseBayFC wrote: Sun Jun 19, 2022 4:53 pm
MVM originally approached the Stormers but were rejected.
Sandy disappeared.assfly wrote: Mon Jun 20, 2022 8:58 amLulz. Always a chuckle going back to page 1 to see what people were thinking!
They signed three ou toppies this season. Deon Fourie was terrific. Brock Harris was very good off the bench. Juan de Jongh was anonymous/injured. There seems increasingly to be a place for the older player in our SA local teams. The Stormers were really quite a young team and to have a guy like Deon Fourie in the backrow together with Dayimani and Roos is priceless. Steyn and Pienaar did the same at Cheetahs. Although it seems they may be running out of steam.
