It was a Father’s Day celebration of note at Cape Town Stadium on Saturday, with the Stormers beating the Bulls 18-13 to lift the inaugural United Rugby Championship trophy.
The gift of the Stormers’ first tournament trophy in the franchise’s 22-year-history was not only limited to the Stormers faithful, though, but to the father of the team, coach John Dobson’s, dad Paul who died in 2020.
Dobson Senior was a legendary former referee, rugby historian and journalist, and would undoubtedly have been over the moon with pride after his son bagged the franchise its first trophy.
Asked what the victory means to him and his family, Dobson says: “It means the world to me.
“I actually had one of those floppy hats with WP Rugby on it, that he wore - I had it on earlier.
“It means a lot, my dad was a proper man of rugby. I thought last week he’d given us the semifinal, but he hung around this week...”
Of winning the trophy, he adds: “It’s surreal, what we’ve been through. The mission statement at the start was to make Cape Town smiling again - we were always on front pages for the wrong reason. “People were disconnected from the team and to go around the stadium afterwards, people weren’t saying well done, they were saying thank you. And we want to say thank you to them. To re-establish that connection is absolutely surreal.”
John Dobson relives the Grand Final emotion 😍#URC | #STOvBUL | #AllFor1 | @THESTORMERS pic.twitter.com/Ke6mI6UStm
— United Rugby Championship (URC) (@URCOfficial) June 18, 2022