After sustaining a knee injury on Saturday, Stormers head coach John Dobson is worried that flanker Deon Fourie may miss the remainder of the year.

The Cape Town team suffered a painful 22-21 loss before losing to La Rochelle in the Champions Cup last-16.

In addition, they experienced several injury setbacks, including the forced departures of Leolin Zas, Hacjivah Dayimani, Salmaan Moerat, and Ben-Jason Dixon.

Season-closing

But Dobson’s assessment of Fourie’s was particularly alarming, calling it “serious” before speculating that “it could be the [end of his] season.”

Even with such a high attrition rate, the Stormers managed to secure an improbable victory.

Manie Libbok scored the game-winning kick thanks to a touchdown by Suleiman Hartzenberg after La Rochelle had rallied from a 16-0 deficit to lead 22-16.

It was precisely the same situation as the match from the pool stage earlier in the competition. Although Libbok was successful that time, the Springboks fly-half’s attempt this time was noticeably ineffective.

“It was an unachievable kick.” It was impossible in those winds, Dobson remarked.

La Rochelle defeats the injured Stormers thanks to a late match-winning basket from Springbok Manie Libbok.

Although the Stormers’ performance in the quarterfinals of the Champions Cup did not match that of their inaugural campaign, its head coach was nonetheless pleased with his team’s performance.

The fact that they attempted to score that try truly made me proud. He stated, “Damian [Willemse] tried to come in when he could have scored in the corner.”

Many teams would have just accepted the offer to try. Despite the fact that our maul was rather promising, we decided against trying to score a maul.

“We were playing as the defending champs, totally derailed by injuries, and we were concerned about where we would score. That poisedness in the face of such strain.

“It’s being destroyed by every other team in the world.” Normally, we would ask Manie to kick it after we mauled it. That level of maturity and poise was absolutely impressive.

focusing on the URC run-in

Dobson thinks the Stormers can focus on winning the United Rugby Championship again and find many reasons to be happy about coming within such a tight call against the two-time winners.

The more games we can play and experiences we can have together. Two games in a row, we have faced off against what is perhaps the greatest club team in the world. We may claim that because it ended one-one in the series,” he remarked.

“The Champions Cup is currently an added bonus. About a year or two separates us, just in terms of experience. Clearly, we have not arrived yet.