Cape Town - John Dobson is no ordinary rugby coach.
With his qualifications in creative writing, it’s no surprise that the Stormers mentor has a penchant for the written word, and it’s poetry and a Greek myth that helped take his team all the way to the final of the United Rugby Championship.
The Stormers will host the Bulls in the grand finale in Cape Town tomorrow. The all-South African showdown kicks off at 7.30pm.
When the Stormers joined the United Rugby Championship, they went into the competition with Western Province Rugby Football Union facing financial and political issues aplenty, while big names - like Siya Kolisi and Bongi Mbonambi - left for greener pastures.
There was just no end to the troubles the union faced.
Speaking during a press conference earlier this week, Dobson explained how they clawed their way through it to get to the other very successful end.
“It was dark. Western Province was dying, no doubt about it,” Dobson said.
“I had in my mind (on) the Dylan Thomas line from his poem ‘Do not go gentle into that good night’.
“It goes like this: ‘Rage, rage against the dying of the light’.
“And then there was the Greek myth of Sisyphus pushing the boulder up the hill. He’s known as the absurd hero. He was without hope, and his joy became defying that absence of hope.
“As a team, we were 88/1 odds at the start of this competition, and we told the players about the absurd hero that was Sisyphus.
“They took it on board and revelled
in proving everybody wrong week in and week out.”
The Stormers secured their spot in the final of the inaugural United
Rugby Championship by beating Edinburgh in the quarter-finals and showed massive character to overcome an intense, high-pressure final quarter to defeat Ulster in the semis at Cape Town Stadium.
Dobson went on to admit that they weren’t far from ending up like the Southern Kings, while he added that they never planned to win the competition, something that is now a very real possibility with only one hurdle left.
“It was a really tough time at the start of the season," he said.
“I love Western Province rugby. I didn’t want to see it break down, but we were perilously close to what happened to the Southern Kings.
“And we were about to play the Bulls in one of the rounds and only to be called away from a training session to a management meeting to explain why you should remain as coach ... that’s not constructive.
“There were meetings every week between the management and players. It became like a kind of game to try and keep the big players.
“We knew if we could just keep Steven Kitshoff and Frans Malherbe, then we could secure Salmaan Moerat and Damian Willemse and others.
“It was literally done like that, to create a team that could compete.
“And that was all we thought we would do. We aimed for a top-eight placing this season. Our aim was to try and win this competition in 2024 only.
“Then we went on tour and realised, hang on, there is something we can do here.
“I think some of the South African teams went on that first European tour and came back with massive doubts, but we organically just grew as a team and came back a much tighter group.”