We want to add a star to our badge – Stormers’ Damian Willemse

Springbok star Damian Willemse says the Stormers are targeting Champions Cup glory, as they prepare to welcome Bristol Bears for their opening match of the competition at the Cape Town Stadium on Saturday (kick-off 4:15pm).

No South African team has ever progressed past the quarterfinal stage, which the Stormers reached in their first campaign back in 2022-23, but have since been knocked out twice in the last 16 and once didn’t even reach the playoffs.

With the Stormers seemingly taking this season’s Champions Cup a lot more seriously than they have previously, with Director of Rugby John Dobson saying they would at the very least like to reach the semifinals, and with a team boosted by a number of Bok acquisitions during the off season, they may just have what it takes to go very far.

“I’m very excited for the start of the Champions Cup. For us as a club, it would mean the world to add a star to our badge. We feel very strongly about this competition,” said Willemse ahead of Saturday’s match.

“We’ve reached the quarter-finals and played in the round of 16, so we know what the pressure feels like when you go to Europe and play against the big clubs, like Bordeaux, Toulon and Leinster. We really want to add a star to our badge, but obviously, it’s still early days.

“We’ve got a very tough match against Bristol this weekend. I really rate them as a team. They’ve got an incredible coaching staff, and what they’ve done with their programme really shows on the field. We’re looking forward to our opening game.”

Points at home

The Stormers will know what they need to do to progress to the competition knockouts, which is win at least two of their four pool games, but as they experienced last season winning three might not even be enough to earn them a home last 16 clash, as they missed out on that by not picking up enough bonus points.

Thus they will know how vital it will be to pick up a full house of points at home, especially with tough away trips to competition double defending champions, Bordeaux-Begles, in France and Gloucester in England in December and January, while they will also host French side Racing 92 in January.

“In the Champions Cup, there are four pool games and we basically have to win at least two (to reach the knockouts). We’re going to Gloucester and Bordeaux, and these are all tough games,” explained Willemse.

“We want to take it a step further and go the full distance this year. We showed tremendous form in last season’s Champions Cup, going to Toulon, we lost by one point (in the last 16). It’s on all of us to make sure we get our momentum and that everyone is firing when we play these games.”

Quality Bristol

Focusing on the task at hand, this weekend against Bristol, Willemse admitted that the English Premiership side have a number of top players that could cause them problems.

“There’s a lot of firepower in that backline. Louis Rees-Zammit (Welsh international) is there, Gabriel Ibitoye and Tom Jordan (Scottish international) are massive players,” said Willemse.

“Benhard (Janse van Rensburg, South Africa-born recent England international) is there as well. They’ve got the full package and are an outstanding team. They can move the ball, kick and run, so it’s going to be a massive clash on Saturday.”