There are conflicting stories around the strength of the Stade Rochelais (La Rochelle) team that the DHL Stormers will be facing in Gqeberha but director of rugby John Dobson is trying hard to ignore it.
The last time the French side were in South Africa to play the Stormers was when they came here for the 2024 Investec Champions Cup round of 16 game. Having won their Pool game with a last gasp Manie Libbok conversion a few months earlier, on this occasion the boot was on the other foot, with Libbok failing with what would have been a match winning kick into a howling wind.
That’s how close it has been between these two teams in the past, and while when they last met La Rochelle were here as European champions, in fact they’d doubled up for successive titles, and now they are among the also-rans, Dobson is not going with the angle that says they will be under-strength for the Gqeberha game.
“We are prepared for their full metal jacket team as they were an incredible side when they played us two years ago and in two games we went toe to toe over 80 minutes,” said Dobson.
“We are hearing conflicting stories. Some have it that they are coming here under-strength, others say the opposite. So we have to be prepared for the scenario of facing their best team.”
A star player for La Rochelle over their period of success is Will Skelton, and Stormers captain Salmaan Moerat spoke about how he was looking forward to testing himself against one of the best in the business as if he was playing, which illustrated Dobson’s point about being prepared for any scenario.
“You want to measure yourself against one of the best so it will be great if he does play as you want to measure yourself against the best,” said Moerat.
“If he plays it will be a massive challenge. He is one of the best maul setters in the world. La Rochelle take great pride in their maul.”
However, Skelton was among a group of players that La Rochelle deregistered before the start of the Champions Cup, meaning he is unavailable for the trip to Gqeberha. Perhaps the story that they will come for this game with a team loaded with younger players is closer to the truth, as it is often instructive to look at a travelling French team’s log position in the Top 14 before ascertaining how they will approach the game.
If they are down in the bottom part of the log in their regular league, the tough promotion-relegation system in place in France makes it imperative to put more effort into that. La Rochelle are currently 10th, in other words just a few places above the automatic drop zone, and having picked up a full house of points at home last week it should be anticipated they will come to Gqeberha with an under-strength team.
Dobson is right though not to assume that and he feels that the side he has selected for this game, with Sacha Feinberg-Mgnomezulu back at flyhalf and Cobus Reinach making his first start for the Stormers in a home game, is as close to full strength as he could get it.
“We decided to go precautionary on Damian Willemse, who will be ready next week, and Ruben van Heerden and Dan du Plessis weren’t available because of injuries, Suleiman Hartzenberg will be back next week (plus Adre Smith is suspended for one game), otherwise this is pretty close to a full strength match day 23,” said Dobson.
“It’s good to see it. It has been what we have been working on for a while, the creation of depth. Particularly at forward, where I can easily out of the top of my head name a second pack that would do really well. We’ve been looking forward to this day where we can show off a team of this quality so it is now incumbent upon us to go out and deliver on the field.”
The EPCR protocol is for the teams to be announced en masse the day before the game but apparently there has been a relaxation of that because of the need to sell the games, particularly in South Africa. The team the Stormers have announced isn’t officially finalised before the EPCR cutoff at 14.00 on Friday, but hopefully the knowledge that Feinberg-Mngomezulu is playing will get some extra bums on seats at the Nelson Mandela Bay Stadium.
After all, it is not often that the people of the Eastern Cape get a chance to see the new sensation in world rugby in the flesh, and ditto his halfback partner Reinach.