AUDIO: URC break perfectly suits Stormers
LISTEN as Stormers captain Salmaan Moerat and Director of Rugby John Dobson talk about the way forward following their 56-5 United Rugby Championship Round 16 victory against Benetton.
The win against the Italians almost certainly secured the Capetonians a URC quarterfinal spot.
The Stormers endured an inconsistent season and suffered numerous injuries to top players throughout the season.
The URC now head into a week break with the Champions and Challenge Cup semifinals taking place.
Stormers captain Salmaan Moerat feels that the break couldn’t have come at a better time for the team after a gruelling couple of weeks.
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“We’ve had a tough couple of weeks behind us. It’s a good time for us to recoup and get better as a group. The next three weeks are very important to us.
“Everyone is in the race for the play-offs. It could work for or against us, but I feel it’s much needed after two very tough fixtures.
“Benetton arguably is the toughest game that we earmarked, but a lot of credit must go to the boys. They really performed well.”
Dobson admitted that the Stormers felt the pressure to make the play-offs following a poor start to the season and echoed Moerat’s sentiments that a week off would do the Capetonians a world of good.
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“This whole season since that [first] tour we felt like we had a knife against our throats.
“And then we would just have one position totally cleaned out injury-wise. Like now it’s tighthead [prop].
“At one stage we had eight Springboks on our books with seven injured.
“I’ve been asked how we will fit them all in like Manie [Libbok], Damian [Willemse] Warrick [Gelant] and Sacha Feinberg-Mngomezulu, but the fact is we never had [all] of them [available].
“We never had all four of those playmakers, but now we have three of them [available].
“It’s a much [needed] mental break for the players because each week the mentality was ‘must-win’. And through our own doing and some bad luck at times as well.”
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