Stormers director of rugby John Dobson says he and attack coach Dawie Snyman learned valuable lessons from shadowing Italy head coach Gonzalo Quesada.
Dobson and Snyman joined Quesada in Port Elizabeth during Italy’s build-up to their second Test against the Springboks in July.
While the Azzurri went on to suffer a heavy defeat, Dobson insists the time was well spent.
This week, the roles were reversed, with Quesada embedded in the Stormers’ camp during pre-season.
“Dawie and I went to visit him the week of the second Test against Italy to shadow him, and he joked that we must have given Rassie all their information because they lost so badly,” Dobson told News24. “So we spent a week with him and the idea was that once we were in pre-season, he would spend a week with us.”
Dobson said it was unusual for a national coach to shadow a club setup, but the feedback has been invaluable.
“The idea is that we’ll sit with him and he gives us a warts-and-all critique on how well we’ve done and what he thinks we can do better,” he explained. “It’s not just about learning – it’s also about getting honest feedback from a very, very good coach. A lot of our attack shape, the stuff we’re going to do this season, came from that week with him.”
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Dobson added that Quesada was also curious to observe the Stormers’ cultural and team-building work.
“He gets his players from clubs and has just two weeks to bring them together, so he wanted to learn from us in that regard. We said the only condition was that he give us a really honest appraisal at the end of the week.”
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Dobson admitted it had been refreshing to have “outside eyes” on the squad.
“Sometimes you get so caught up in your own system that you stop seeing the flaws. Having Gonzalo here has already challenged us in terms of detail, alignment and how we think about space in attack. That’s exactly the kind of perspective we were looking for.”
Photo: Grant Pitcher/Gallo Images
