STORMERS HEAD COACH John Dobson says that the Stormers’ celebrations after they watched Munster beat Leinster in the second URC semi-final were simply due to the fact that the South Africans will now host the URC final as opposed to having to travel to Ireland.
The reigning URC champions beat Connacht in Cape Town on Saturday afternoon to earn a second successive appearance in the competition’s showpiece.
Shortly after Munster had upset tournament favourites Leinster that evening to join the Stormers in the 27 May decider, a video circulated online which showed Stormers players, coaches and their loved ones celebrating wildly in a corporate suite at the club’s DHL Stadium while Munster’s players did similarly on television screens in the background.
Elated Stormers hooker Joseph Dweba can even be heard shouting ‘we’re gonna fuck them up’ after play-off fifth seeds Munster booked a return to Cape Town, where Graham Rowntree’s side became the first northern hemisphere team to beat the Stormers on their own patch just over a month ago.
@balls.ie The Stormers celebrate Munster beating Leinster.👀
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The champions’ popular head coach John Dobson admitted that the Stormers had already made plans to travel to Dublin this weekend ahead of what they presumed would be a final against Leinster at the Aviva Stadium on 27 May.
Dobson insisted, however, that his side has the utmost respect for “European giants” Munster and that the celebrations were merely the result of a collective realisation between players, coaches, partners and sponsors that the Stormers — whose mission statement this season is to ‘make Cape Town smile’ — would be finishing their campaign on home soil.
“We had booked and we were going to Dublin this weekend,” Dobson said during an online press conference on Monday. “And it was something where, from a rugby point of view, I was quite looking forward to it because I thought it would be a great experience for the group: to go and play Leinster in the Aviva.
“But then, I thought our mission is to ‘make Cape Town smile.’”
“We were sitting in the DHL box, who are our amazing sponsors. And Munster are also a DHL-sponsored team. And suddenly, guys are saying, ‘Listen, Munster might win this.’
“We’re in the DHL box and DHL people were hoping [that Munster would win] because, imagine that: another DHL team in the DHL Stadium.
“Wives and girlfriends are there, and suddenly their husbands aren’t going to be away for 10 days, and we can be playing in front of the Cape Town people again.
“It was a game we were half-watching, and then it suddenly all became real: ‘We could be playing another game at home.’
“We can have another farewell to ‘Kitsy,’” Dobson smiled, turning to the Ulster-bound Steven Kitshoff who joined him at Monday’s presser. “It was a massive celebration.
“Listen, we’ve got massive respect for Munster. It heaps the pressure on us because they’re such a good team and we’re playing at home. Look, Munster are European giants.
It’s going to be a very, very, very tough task. Munster, we haven’t beaten in the URC. They’ve beaten us twice. They ended our proud home record. Their away record over the last few weeks has been incredible. Scotstoun, nobody had won there this season. They’ve gone to the Aviva and won a game. They’ve ended our record. They’ve drawn in Durban.
“But just to be playing in front of our people, and what it’s going to mean to this whole town, the hype of rugby, the growth of rugby from the grassroots… It was something we didn’t expect. The noise you probably heard was just the celebration that we’re going to be staying at home.”
The Stormers, whose home city of Cape Town has one of the highest poverty rates in South Africa, will this Thursday begin selling tickets for the final from as little as R80, or €3.86.
