Very good teams rarely lose at home. Exceptional teams win consistently on the road. John Dobson’s Stormers currently are a very good team.
The transition to exceptional can only come with winning overseas — and that would have been the message from Dobson to his troops all week.
What the Stormers have achieved at home in the past two years has been magnificent. They have won 28 out of 31 home matches, with most of those matches played at the DHL Stadium. They lost their first ever home United Rugby Championship match to the Lions two years ago and last year lost twice in Cape Town to Ireland’s Munster, including the URC final. On both occasions, just five points separated the two teams.
The Stormers knocked over every other team that travelled to South Africa as well as their South African rivals the Bulls, Sharks and Lions. The list is impressive: Leinster, Connacht and Ulster from Ireland; Edinburgh and Glasgow from Scotland; Benetton and Zebre from Italy, Cardiff, Ospreys, Dragons and Scarlets from Wales; Harlequins and Sale Sharks from England and France’s Clermont and La Rochelle, with the latter back-to-back winners of the most recent Champions Cup title. That is 18 different opponents beaten at home, with the Bulls suffering the most defeats against the Stormers in Cape Town in this period.
The Stormers are granite in Cape Town, but there is too much putty when they pass customs on the way out of South Africa.
They have still found a way to win in Johannesburg, Pretoria and Durban, but it is up north overseas where they have battled the most.
They have won five from five at home in the Champions Cup and just one from four away from home.
Their overall away record is nine wins, four draws and 10 defeats in the URC and their overseas record is four wins, three draws and 13 defeats in 20 starts.
Greatness is measured by an ability to win when the conditions are foreign, the opposition is comforted by a home crowd and all that a squad can rely on is the 23 tasked with the on-field 80 minutes.
Many of those defeats have been by less than a converted try and often the Stormers have played themselves into winning positions. With a bit of good fortune, they could have been a 50-plus percent win team overseas. The reality is they have won just 20% of their overseas matches, as opposed to 90% at home.
The greatest teams, in every competition, be it the Rugby Championship, the Six Nations, the World Cup, Super Rugby, Champions Cup or the URC, win away from home more than they lose.
Think the Crusaders, Toulon, Saracens, Toulouse and Leinster at club level and Richie McCaw’s All Blacks between 2011 and the 2015 World Cup final. Think Siya Kolisi’s World Cup champion Springboks, who won in Japan in 2019 and in France in 2023.
McCaw’s All Blacks were in a class of their own in consistently winning away from home in an unmatched international five-year period and they were rewarded with back-to-back World Cup titles.
The All Blacks, between the start of the 2011 international season and the end of the 2015 season, won 31 from 31 at home and they won 29 and drew two from 34 overseas. In total, they lost three matches in 65 and that included playing France six times, South Africa 10 times, England six times, Ireland four times, Argentina nine times and Australia 15 times. They played more matches away from home than at home for those 60 wins and two draws in 65 Tests.
Greatness is measured by an ability to win when the conditions are foreign, the opposition is comforted by a home crowd and all that a squad can rely on is the 23 tasked with the on-field 80 minutes.
The Stormers, if victorious against Stade Francais in Paris on Saturday afternoon, will host a last 16 Champions Cup play-off. If beaten, they may still sneak into the last 16, but it is the home tie that is likely to secure them a second successive tournament last eight, which is a big achievement in their first two seasons competing for what is deemed Europe’s most elite club competition.
The players all week have spoken about being true to their own talent and Dobson has emphasised a “no excuse” culture, be it travel, hotel beds, food or sub-zero playing conditions.
Stade, third in the Top 14 with seven wins and a draw from 11 matches, are an imposing prospect when playing in Paris and a victory for the Stormers will be a major step in their pursuit of changing the narrative from being a very good side to an exceptional one.
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