DHL Stormers director of rugby John Dobson said his injury-ravaged team’s hopes of finishing in the Vodacom URC final four are all but gone following their one-point loss to the Vodacom Bulls.
“Today was probably the end of that top-four dream, we’ve just got to fight our way into the top eight, at the end of the day we’re very disappointed, no matter what the injury situation is.”
Dobson admitted that apart from the current training squad the Stormers are running on empty, especially at lock.
"This is pretty much the team that's going to get us to the next two local derbies. Paul de Villiers would be somebody you could look at, and maybe Willy Engelbrecht. There are no locks. So this is pretty much the squad."
“If you’d tell me right now to pick a team on paper that didn’t play today, I’m not trying to make excuses but you gotta have some perspective here, Damian Willemse, Senatla on the one wing and Suleiman Hartzenberg on the other wing."
“You can put Ruhan Nel at thirteen, you put Sacha at twelve, Manie at ten, you can put JD Schickerling in the team, Steven Kitshoff and Neethling Fouche"
"If you pick this team with what we had, then we can give a lot of credit to Stormers rugby today, that’s my view.”
Dobson said despite the loss his players fought until the end.
"I'm very proud of the way we fought at the end. I am not so happy with the way we did in the scrums, especially in the first half. That put us under a lot of pressure and we lost a lot of territory, so we were on the back foot early on."
“We fought back well but I can’t say much more. The last 10, 15 minutes, a couple of holding penalties and inaccuracies at the breakdown, they’re a really good jackalling team."
“This team will rise, they’ll always find their way back. It’s going to be tough, but this reserve team has shown it’s got a bit of fight.”