The 22-all draw towards Leinster within the United Rugby Championship (URC) final week was the right preparation for the Stormers’ Champions Cup final 16 match towards Harlequins at Cape Town Stadium on Saturday.
After lacking quite a few key gamers who had been rested and then a part of a Springbok coaching camp over the previous two months, the Stormers had been lastly in a position to subject a full-strength aspect towards the URC desk toppers in Dublin.
They acquitted themselves properly within the entertaining recreation and shall be stuffed with confidence as they put together to host the English challengers of their knockout match this weekend.
“The first task (against Leinster) was to get the guys battle-hardened and ready for Harlequins, which is a knockout game. As a team, we wanted to get together again,” defined Stormers coach John Dobson.
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“We didn’t play some guys for the first two rounds of the Currie Cup, so even guys like Joseph Dweba were a little bit rusty, as well as the Springboks who have been with us (and not at the Bok camp),” he added.
“We tried to get some combinations going. That was our main job to get out of this game. We had it clearly worked out. The second thing was to learn more about these conditions.”
‘A great spectacle’
Looking on the crunch final 16 match, which the hosts are hoping to play in entrance of a packed stadium in Cape Town, Dobson believed his workforce had been up for the problem.
“It looks like we’re going to be ready (for Harlequins). We’ve done quite a bit of work on them. It’s going to be a great spectacle in our conditions, with their style of rugby,” mentioned Dobson.
“Danny Care and Marcus Smith, they’ve got real skill with those two half-backs. They play a great, attractive brand of rugby, so we are going to do what we did against Leinster, slow some ball down (at the breakdown) and stop Andre Esterhuizen.”
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