Article: Stormers administration and winning the URC

[saulan]

The Stormers miracle revisited - Rugby World magazine

As they begin their new season, we look back at the absurd heroics of the Stormers winning the URC while in administration

www.rugbyworld.com

Found this article quite interesting in terms of shedding light on some of the struggles the team went through last year and still managed to win the URC. Think it's clear that SARU has done a pretty amazing job in rescuing the club from some pretty dramatic/stupid implosions that happened from unqualified management. This right here really stood out to me in terms of how much they were struggling, and potentially gives insight into the initial tour in Europe:

"One bad thing was our resources. You want to know about the start, but there was one URC tour where we ate four McDonald's in a row as our meals. There were two games when we couldn't travel with more players, we ended up with 22-men squads because someone got sick or hurt in the warm-up.

A professional rugby team having McDonalds for four meals in in a row...

Does also have a bit of contrast to the Premiership administration of Worcester, in terms of support and getting the team through it. I know its very different structures, and in general losing WP rugby would have some real impacts down to grassroots in the Western Cape, but still - feels like SARU has the house in order in terms of stepping in (or maybe learnt some painful lessons from the Kings in the past)

 

[Don't Skip Leg Day]

Sounds like a props dream!