Rugby union still produces some fascinating individuals and John Dobson, the head honcho at the DHL Stormers, is very much one of them. To say “Dobbo” is not your average coach is self-evident from his CV. In addition to degrees in law and business administration from the University of Cape Town there is surely no other top-level director of rugby with a creative writing degree. As he wryly puts it: “I was the only person on the course who didn’t wear a tweed skirt.”
As a player he was also, for two seasons, the only white guy in an otherwise exclusively black working-class club side. “What did I learn? How privileged us white people were.” He was conscripted into the South African army during the apartheid era, has had two novels published and is the son of a noted South African rugby writer, referee and historian. He describes himself as “an accidental coach” having started out as coach of his local university fourth XV, but has subsequently guided the Stormers, then in administration, to the inaugural 2022 URC title, the franchise’s first piece of silverware.
Stitch together all these disparate strands – he also loves The Cure and the poetry of Dylan Thomas – and you have someone well worth consulting on subjects such as the soul of rugby and the sport’s current health. And once he has retrieved Norman the family dog from the garden – “He’s a lazy, obese beagle” – some nagging concerns are soon evident on the eve of the Stormers’ Champions Cup tie against Harlequins at the Stoop on Saturday.
For starters the Stormers are set to field a weakened team, partly because of injuries and logistics but also because of upcoming games against their local rivals the Lions and the Sharks either side of Christmas. While Dobson’s side will be competitive – “We’ll put up a fight in Harlequins, we’re not coming to get our tummies tickled” – he would love, one day, to send up his first-choice XV.
“I think we’ve got to sort out the Champions Cup. Maybe because of our presence it’s a bit unwieldy at the moment. People are a bit confused by it and it’s certainly not what it was – to my mind as an outsider – a couple of years ago. That’s what I worry about: if it becomes really vanilla with teams just going through the motions.”
He cites last weekend’s pool game against Toulon in Gqeberha (formerly Port Elizabeth) as a cautionary case study. “We played a Champions Cup game in a beautiful city and I didn’t speak to one Frenchman. Dan Biggar came to our changing room afterwards but we didn’t do anything for them. How is it possible that guys can come from another continent and we don’t even say hello to them? It’s really odd but it’s across the board now.
“It feels to me like we’re in a curious space with some of rugby’s values. I’m sounding very old fashioned now but lying down [feigning injury] to try and get the TMO involved? Not speaking to the opposition? I think we’ve all, South Africa included, trampled over rugby’s values a little bit over the last little while. It just feels like [the sport] is a little bit lost.”
It is clearly a subject close to the thoughtful Dobson’s heart. “I’m old school. I like that side of the game. When I started with the Stormers some guys weren’t showering after matches. They were just getting into their tracksuits and going home. I said: ‘Jeepers, if we don’t like people here enough to have a cold drink with them afterwards we’re in trouble’. A lot of those old values … I reckon that’s where the future of rugby could be.”
In the meantime he wants his players to appreciate what they have, rather than grumbling about commuting north to play in the freezing British gloom. “I remember last year we were playing London Irish at Brentford and we were training at the Lensbury Club. The guys were complaining having just come down on a long bus ride from Glasgow. I said: ‘Listen, you fuckers. If I’d said a year ago that you could play Champions Cup rugby in London you’d have canoed up the west coast of Africa. Don’t take all this for granted.’”
A return to more parochial fixtures, he warns, would be ruinous. “Are we going to go back to playing against the Griquas and Free State like in the 1980s? We’d better behave ourselves; it would be absolutely insane. We’re playing in competitions that are absolutely suited to our DNA. Every breakdown and scrum is a contest, every lineout maul is a fight. That’s actually what winning Test rugby and World Cups are all about.”
Once upon a time Dobson played hooker for Western Province and has lived through all kinds of social upheaval in his homeland. Winning World Cups cannot solve every political problem – “The country isn’t united like that for the other three years and 10 months” – but he believes rugby has helped to ease some divisions. “Remember when we had the quota system with a certain number of black players in the team? Now rugby in South Africa has realised how much the so-called disadvantaged communities of the country could bring.
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“Players are there on merit and that is where the real transformation is coming. Before there was this stigma surrounding the quota and some of the guys weren’t good enough. I’m not sure about a unified country but in rugby it’s really bedding in deep. And that does help the country, of course it does.”
It is another reason why Dobson has chosen the mission statement “Make Cape Town Smile” as his team’s mantra. “What we’ve got in Cape Town is an amazing project. Rugby is so big among all races in the Western Cape so we’ve got this connection with the city. It’s almost a day-by-day version of the Springbok project.
“One or two people overseas have approached me to go and coach them, especially after we won the URC. But when the Stormers fire me I’m done in coaching. Panasonic v Mitsubishi would mean nothing to me. If the Stormers win the police say that gender-based violence drops in our poorer suburbs. That makes it a bit more than a game. South African teams always draw on a little extra edge compared to some countries because you’re playing for so much.
“Our players get that. If you look at our crowd these people are making amazing sacrifices. It’s not like rugby in the 1980s here when it was all smart people of my background. This team went into administration and was bankrupt. To reconnect it and give it back to the people of Cape Town is my project.”
More power to Dobbo and the cause he holds so dear.
