The Stormers are braced for a tough battle on Saturday evening when they face the Glasgow Warriors in the last quarter-final of the United Rugby Championship.

The Warriors will make the most of their home ground advantage at the Scotstoun Stadium and under the guidance of the former Cheetahs coach, Franco Smith, they have become a formidable opponent.

Discipline will be key for the Stormers while they have to also execute their plan to perfection.

The Stormers coach, John Dobson, feels seeing that it will be number four versus number five on the log facing in each in the quarter-finals is the perfect match-up and it will be good yardstick regarding their progress.

“It is a fair match-up this one, it is fourth against fifth, and as those positions will indicate, we are two quite evenly matched teams,” said Dobson,

“We are probably where we both deserve to be, fourth against fifth. It is not like number one against number eight, where there is big pressure and expectation on the top ranked team, who are expected to win.

“It is an important part of our growth to be playing in an away play-off game.

“It is challenging and you can imagine what it does to the training week but we do have the main squad still here and flying out on Tuesday afternoon and we are following pretty much the pattern of the last two tours so we are used to it.”

Saturday evenings’ quarter-final in Glasgow kicks off at 20:35. At 15:30 the Bulls will entertain Benetton at Loftus Versfeld.

Morgan Piek OFM Sport