Rugby union still produces some fascinating individuals and John Dobson, the head honcho at the DHL Stormers, is very much one of them. To say “Dobbo” is not your average coach is self-evident from his CV. In addition to degrees in law and business administration from the University of Cape Town there is surely no other top-level director of rugby with a creative writing degree. As he wryly puts it: “I was the only person on the course who didn’t wear a tweed skirt.”
As a player he was also, for two seasons, the only white guy in an otherwise exclusively black working-class club side. “What did I learn? How privileged us white people were.” He was conscripted into the South African army during the apartheid era, has had two novels published and is the son of a noted South African rugby writer, referee and historian. He describes himself as “an accidental coach” having started out as coach of his local university fourth XV, but has subsequently guided the Stormers, then in administration, to the inaugural 2022 URC title, the franchise’s first piece of silverware.
