Dobson wary of festive fatigue

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John Dobson says the DHL Stormers will try and “de-load” their players as much as possible as they prepare to play through December in a first for South African teams. DYLAN JACK reports.

Saturday’s Vodacom United Rugby Championship clash between the Stormers and Dragons will start a run of fixtures for South African teams on a stacked December schedule, which includes their first taste of the Champions Cup.

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It will be the first time in the professional era that South African teams are asked to play through December and the beginning of January. This period normally marks the off-season for South African-based players, who are used to putting up their feet in the summer.

“It’s a challenge because South Africa’s DNA, no matter your religion, is from 16 or 18 December until 2 or 3 January, you are with your family or your friends,” Dobson told the media on Friday.

“To be at work during that time is just not something that’s in our DNA. So what we are going to do is be as sensitive as possible to get the guys home as much as we can.

“It will mean training less. We play the Bulls on Friday, 23 December. That’s a Friday game, so normally we would definitely train on the Day of Goodwill on the 26th in an ordinary cycle. This year, we won’t train on that day. It’s the day after some of the guys would have celebrated Christmas.

“We are just going to have to train less and send the players home. In a city like Cape Town, we also have to be aware of trying to train at the stadium when there’s going to be a massive amount of traffic around the Waterfront.

“We have to be clever in how we de-stress and de-load as much as we can,” Dobson added. “We will push hard through the week we play London Irish [on 17 December]. Then we will try to reduce training time and get the guys working online as much as possible.

“I don’t want to put anything else in the diary. ‘Dobbo’s Christmas party’ won’t be the easiest sell. We would rather send them home.”

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Photo: Shaun Roy/BackpagePix

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Dylan Jack