Dobson to pick a ‘hybrid’ Western Province team

John Dobson watches over a Western Province training session. Photo: Chris Ricco/BackpagePi

John Dobson watches over a Western Province training session. Photo: Chris Ricco/BackpagePi

Published Jul 26, 2017

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CAPE TOWN - Western Province coach John Dobson is hoping that they can take the “winning momentum” of the Stormers and the SuperSport Rugby Challenge team into their Currie Cup-opener against the Free State Cheetahs on Sunday.

Province will travel to Bloemfontein on Friday to open their Currie Cup campaign after enjoying a bye last week, and with the Stormers being Africa 1 conference winners and the SuperSport Challenge team having gone through the competition unbeaten, Dobson is banking on players from both squads to add their winning mix to the Currie Cup.

“Hopefully the winning momentum that has built up among the Stormers and the SuperSport team can help us a little bit in terms of our belief,” he said.

At WP’s first Currie Cup press conference of the season at the team’s training base in Bellville on Tuesday, Dobson said that the team for Sunday will most probably consist of SuperSport Challenge players and Stormers who didn’t get a lot of Super Rugby game time.

The former Ikey Tigers coach also confirmed that hooker Scarra Ntubeni, who missed the entire Super Rugby campaign after being ruled out with an Achilles tendon tear last season, will definitely get some game time this weekend, be it as a run-on player or off the bench.

“It’s definitely going to be a very hard game for us. The Stormers went up there a few weeks ago and they had a tough one. So to go up there with largely a SuperSport team is going to be tough,” Dobson said.

“We planned around the Stormers being in the semi-final, so what we’re going to do is we’ll look at the guys who played a lot and had a lot of game plan, so you can expect more of the guys who didn’t get as much game time. So it will be sort of a hybrid (team).

“A guy like SP Marais, for example, probably won’t go to Bloem, while a guy like JD Schickerling, who was part of the Stormers squad but didn’t get a lot of game time probably will.

“Scarra is definitely in the mix for this weekend, not sure yet if he’ll be starting or if he’ll play off the bench, but he’s definitely in the mix. I’m excited to see him play, he’s been working really hard.”

Starting your season with a bye can be interpreted in a number of ways, but for Dobson it’s certainly a positive as the WP coach believes it meant they “probably avoided” a loss.

Had they played last week, WP would have gone into the competition without their Stormers personnel, although not many of the regular starters are expected to feature.

“I’m very grateful that we got a bye in the first round. The bye avoided us what could have possibly been a defeat at this stage of the season. It’s going to be hard to go and play a team that hasn’t lost there since 2015.”

When asked what he expected from the Cheetahs (who won the Currie Cup trophy after winning all of their games last year) to bring on Sunday, Dobson said that he was expecting the same kind of energy from them that they displayed against the Stormers three weeks ago.

“They are probably targeting this game as a must win, they essentially have a Super Rugby team. We expect them to play just like they did against the Stormers, a good tempo game, punishing us for any mistakes, and their set-piece against the Sharks was also good. So we’re in for a tough afternoon,” he said.

Cape Times

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