{"id":57201,"date":"2023-11-28T17:14:47","date_gmt":"2023-11-28T17:14:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/south-africa\/all-news\/the-urc-the-toughest-its-ever-been-stormers-coach-dobson"},"modified":"2023-11-28T17:42:57","modified_gmt":"2023-11-28T17:42:57","slug":"the-urc-the-toughest-its-ever-been-stormers-coach-dobson","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/south-africa\/all-news\/the-urc-the-toughest-its-ever-been-stormers-coach-dobson","title":{"rendered":"The URC the toughest it\u2019s ever been: Stormers coach Dobson"},"content":{"rendered":"

Africa-Press – South-Africa. <\/strong><\/span>Four defeats on the spin have left the Stormers becalmed and their usually ebullient coach John Dobson short of a quip.<\/p>\n

<\/a>It has also served to firm the coach’s suspicion that the United Rugby Championship (URC) is getting tougher into belief.<\/a>Wins over the Lions and the Scarlets at the start of the campaign have been offset by away defeats against Glasgow Warriors, Benetton Treviso, Munster and Cardiff Blues.<\/p>\n

What would have been particularly frustrating for Dobson was last Friday’s defeat to Cardiff when the inaugural URC champions were in touching distance of victory before again squandering the opportunity.<\/p>\n

Dobson, who saw his team surge to the final in the first two instalments of the tournament, has had much to digest over the past month.<\/p>\n

<\/a>\u201cIt\u2019s been a poor tour for us and as our skipper, Brok Harris, said in the changing room, we all need to have a look at ourselves, at what we could have done better right the way through,\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe two games we probably identified to win \u2014 Benetton and Cardiff \u2014 we chucked away, which is very disappointing.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs a collective, we haven\u2019t done ourselves any favours on our tour. I don\u2019t think the competition thinks more of us, I don’t think some of the players or staff feel as good about themselves as we did.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dobson said his team would have settled for two wins on the road.<\/p>\n

After their solid performance in a narrow defeat to Munster, the Stormers were hoping to leave Cardiff with a victory under the belt. That was not to be after a well below par second-half performance that saw them commit too many elementary errors.<\/p>\n

\u201cCardiff played with real fight, but we were extremely poor,\u201d Dobson said candidly.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor us to give seven scrum put-ins in the second half just through losing the ball in contact or by knocking on is not good enough at URC level. There was some pretty careless handling.\u201d<\/p>\n

Apart from a failure to take control of the ball, their defence left them more to lament.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe pride ourselves on our defence, but we are hurting because it wasn\u2019t our best defensive performance by any stretch. We gave too many yards, we gave them space on the outside, they got round us, we didn\u2019t work hard enough for a couple of their tries.<\/p>\n

\u201cOther than the set-piece, it was a really poor performance \u2014 defence, attack, the contestable game, the kicking game.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dobson described it as their worst performance on tour. He has no doubt the URC is getting tougher.<\/p>\n

\u201cI feel it\u2019s even more competitive this season, very much so. Everywhere you look, there\u2019s a fixture or two you can\u2019t predict. I get the feeling no-one is going to pull away. We are all in a dog fight, there\u2019s no question.\u201d<\/p>\n

They are, however, presented an opportunity to get back on track this weekend when they host Zebre Parma in Stellenbosch on Saturday.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have a lot of work to do. We will have some personnel back, we will play some games at home and we will start putting together some much better performances.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dobson, however, will need no reminding, Zebre are only one place below the Stormers on the points table and a shock win in Stellenbosch will take them above the former champs.<\/p>\n

For More News And Analysis About South-Africa<\/a> Follow Africa-Press<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Africa-Press – South-Africa. Four defeats on the spin have left the Stormers becalmed and their usually ebullient coach John Dobson short of a quip. It has also served to firm the coach’s suspicion that the United Rugby Championship (URC) is getting tougher into belief.Wins over the Lions and the Scarlets at the start of the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":84,"featured_media":57200,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,17],"tags":[274,315,275],"class_list":["post-57201","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-all-news","category-sport","tag-africa-press","tag-africa-press-south-africa","tag-south-africa-2"],"yoast_head":"\nThe URC the toughest it\u2019s ever been: Stormers coach Dobson - South Africa<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Four defeats on the spin have left the Stormers becalmed and their usually ebullient coach John Dobson short of a quip. ...\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/south-africa\/all-news\/the-urc-the-toughest-its-ever-been-stormers-coach-dobson\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The URC the toughest it\u2019s ever been: Stormers coach Dobson\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Four defeats on the spin have left the Stormers becalmed and their usually ebullient coach John Dobson short of a quip. ...\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/south-africa\/all-news\/the-urc-the-toughest-its-ever-been-stormers-coach-dobson\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"South Africa\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/AfricaPressTunisiaa\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2023-11-28T17:14:47+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2023-11-28T17:42:57+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/south-africa\/sites\/31\/2023\/11\/sm_1701180688.615843.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"750\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"490\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"cfeditoren\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"cfeditoren\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/south-africa\/all-news\/the-urc-the-toughest-its-ever-been-stormers-coach-dobson#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/south-africa\/all-news\/the-urc-the-toughest-its-ever-been-stormers-coach-dobson\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"cfeditoren\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/south-africa\/#\/schema\/person\/068c7ab4e9634ae78ec5d54ec46598bb\"},\"headline\":\"The URC the toughest it\u2019s ever been: Stormers coach Dobson\",\"datePublished\":\"2023-11-28T17:14:47+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2023-11-28T17:42:57+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/south-africa\/all-news\/the-urc-the-toughest-its-ever-been-stormers-coach-dobson\"},\"wordCount\":584,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/south-africa\/all-news\/the-urc-the-toughest-its-ever-been-stormers-coach-dobson#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/south-africa\/sites\/31\/2023\/11\/sm_1701180688.615843.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"Africa Press\",\"Africa Press-South-Africa\",\"South-Africa\"],\"articleSection\":[\"all news\",\"sport\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/south-africa\/all-news\/the-urc-the-toughest-its-ever-been-stormers-coach-dobson#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/south-africa\/all-news\/the-urc-the-toughest-its-ever-been-stormers-coach-dobson\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/south-africa\/all-news\/the-urc-the-toughest-its-ever-been-stormers-coach-dobson\",\"name\":\"The URC the toughest it\u2019s ever been: Stormers coach Dobson - 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