Franco Smith 'making hay while the sun shines'
It’s the headline clash of the United Rugby Championship’s Round 16 and a much-talked-about face-off between two of South Africa’s most acclaimed coaches – John Dobson against Franco Smith.
The second-placed Stormers host leaders Glasgow Warriors in a meeting between the top two sides in the table.
Glasgow begins the weekend on 55 points, four clear of Stormers and Leinster, while the Capetonians have the chance to cut the gap at the top and strengthen their push for a home quarterfinal.
Glasgow Warriors’ South African coach, Franco Smith, says their last two losses – a heartbreaking 19-22 against Toulon in a Champions Cup quarterfinal in France and a 12-54 meltdown against the Lions at Ellis Park’s rarified air – will have no impact on his team’s ‘must win’ trip to the Cape Town stadium.
The Warriors have dominated their recent head-to-head encounters against the Stormers, winning five consecutive matches following a May 2022 loss, including a 36-18 victory in May 2025 and a 28-17 win in October 2024.
Glasgow has largely held the upper hand in URC clashes, consistently overcoming the Stormers in both Scotland and South Africa.
He also dismissed the notion that travelling to the Republic late in the season will have a negative impact.
(WATCH as Glasgow Warriors’ South African coach, Franco Smith, explains how he deals with touring South Africa late in the season…..)
“We have worked and played hard throughout the season, to be four points ahead and allow us to manage our [frontline] players,” the 53-year-old, Lichtenburg-born coach said of his team’s crunch outing.
The Warriors made 10 changes to the side from last weekend’s blowout at Ellis Park.
Those changes include the return of captain Kyle Steyn, along with fellow Scotland internationals Huw Jones and Sione Tuipulotu, as well as brothers Angus and Zander Fagerson.
“This is a demanding trip,” he said of the two-match tour to South Africa.
“When I saw that we were playing them late in the season, and next season we play the Sharks and the Bulls [in the Republic] in the last two weeks, we knew that when you play the South African teams late in the season, we had to make hay while the sun shines.
“During the season, we worked really hard.
“Nobody rocks up at Ellis Park and just knocks the Lions over, not even in the domestic derbies.
“It is a tough competition, and there are more ingredients than just one loss.
“If that [loss at Ellis Park] is going to derail this team, then I haven’t done a good enough job.
“There is motivation in that for us, but we will move on and face the next challenge.
“This can become [the proverbial] pebble in our shoe if we allow this [loss] to distract us from what needs to be done in the next six weeks.”
He added that it would be a ‘loss’ if there is no progress in his team’s performance over the last two weeks.
“It is a challenge when you suddenly have two play-off matches in the middle of a round-robin environment,” he told JanDKrugby.
“You go from a cut-throat situation where, when you lose, you are out, to a round-robin situation where you build and progress.
“You have to grow young players and manage your internationals, building your product to progress and become lethal at the back-end of the season.”
He added that winning or losing will not determine what their respective rugby programmes are about at this stage of the season.
“The fact that our squad gets depleted during the Six Nations, which we understand, but there is a challenge to get them back into the franchise system and, in some cases, recover from injury.
“Then we also played two European Cup games in the middle of it.
“That is why they next five weeks are important to use the next five weeks to grow our process again.”
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