The Stormers deserve their break this week.
I really mean it when I say it is well earned.
Maybe not so much the players, especially after their heavy defeat to the Blues on Saturday. But definitely in the case of coach John Dobson and the rest of his backroom staff.
See, the results we are seeing on the pitch currently - they still have four wins out of five - is the culmination of months of planning and hard work behind the scenes.
To fans, the Super Rugby season is five weeks old this week, but Dobson and his staff have been slogging away for months on end.
In my years of documenting the Stormers (and it’s been well over a decade now) I certainly haven’t experienced something quite like this before.
PLANNING: Coach John Dobson. Picture: Ryan Wilkisky/BackpagePix.
At training sessions, beats are blasting through speaker systems, you will see players wrestling with ex-pro Coenie de Villiers at the helm - apparently it’s to help them with tackle techniques.
Some will have sparring sessions next to the touchline. They are just doing things differently. Off the field too.
The other day before the match against the Jaguares, there were Kaapse Klopse speaking to the team, the week before that they were in Riebeek Kasteel.
At some stage they had world-renowned sports scientest Tim Noakes speaking to the team.
Dobson is really taking the game to the people.
Most importantly, he is taking the people to the team and the players.
He is getting them to understand who they represent.
HUMBLE EXAMPLE: The world's best player Pieter-Steph du Toit, right. Picture: Nic Bothma/EPA.
Like Pieter-Steph du Toit told me the other day: “It’s like a business.
“If you take a CEO, who doesn’t know the business, through the structures and get him to get to know everyone, the business is going to grow.
“For us getting to know Cape Town [and its people is amazing].
“That’s when you want to play for a coach because he’s trying to make you a better person and a better rugby player. He cares about you and your values and what you want to do after rugby.
“That’s what we’re trying to create here, rugby you can only play for so long as professionals.”
That, ladies and gentleman, is the best player in the world - someone who has just won the World Cup and the biggest individual prize in the game speaking with such humility.
I have waited years for rugby to mature into the sport that truly makes a difference. It’s got nothing to do with politics and everything to do with creating role models.
I believe this is something that was started by Rassie Erasmus at the World Cup - this sense of the player representing something more than just themselves.
I also believe the Springboks that won the tournament understood that they were just vehicles that must drive this country to the next level.
Dobson is taking that step further and is bringing that provincial pride back to Newlands - pity it will only be for one season with the old lady hosting us for the last time.
But even if the Stormers don’t go all the way this year, I believe that what they are doing off the field already makes this team winners.
Whenever you hear the players talk, you will hear them talking about the brotherhood they have in the squad and you can actually see it in training.
TOUGH SETBACK: Sergeal Petersen. Picture: Luigi Bennett/BackpagePix.
Some five years ago, Dobson hit out at Dillyn Leyds for dancing when he scored an intercept try against the Blue Bulls in the Currie Cup.
When you see Leyds dancing at training sessions now - I think he doesn’t even notice it - it’s probably the way he expresses joy naturally, you realise that it wasn’t that Dobson didn’t like his dancing.
The coach said at the time that it wasn’t good behaviour because of how the try was scored.
The message therein was perhaps not to taunt an opponent when you had a lucky break.
So while he is taking an interest in the players and moulding them into top class role models, not just on the pitch but for life after it as well, Dobson might be working on bringing some gold to Newlands this year.
If it’s not in the form of the Super Rugby trophy, then it’s a bunch of gentlemen that we will always remember said goodbye to the old lady in the most respectful way possible.
And to that, I tip my hat.
Dankie boys...