{"id":485503,"date":"2026-06-06T02:27:18","date_gmt":"2026-06-06T02:27:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/485503\/"},"modified":"2026-06-06T02:27:18","modified_gmt":"2026-06-06T02:27:18","slug":"stormers-boss-verdict-on-leo-cullen-outburst-i-did-the-same-thing-i-was-certainly-wrong","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/485503\/","title":{"rendered":"Stormers boss’ verdict on Leo Cullen outburst: ‘I did the same thing… I was certainly wrong’"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"\/<\/a><\/p>\n

Stormers boss John Dobson admitted he did exactly the same thing by going after the supporters and revealed that he immediately regretted it.<\/p>\n

The Cape Town outfit are in Dublin ahead of their United Rugby Championship semi-final against the Irish giants, but the build-up has been dominated by the Leinster hierarchy\u2019s explosive press conference.<\/p>\n

Both Cullen<\/a> and senior coach Jacques Nienaber have had their say, with the former first to hit the headlines with his post-match comments following the victory over the Lions in the last-eight.<\/p>\n

Cullen\u2019s frustration<\/p>\n

\u201cI haven\u2019t seen it. What backlash?\u201d Cullen asked in a tense exchange last Saturday.<\/p>\n

\u201cSpecifically. Any Leinster<\/a> fans specifically? Nobody\u2019s come to my face yet with this.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not on social media so you\u2019ll have to explain this one to me. I\u2019m not a fan of social media because I think it\u2019s very negative and toxic, that would be my experience.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo, I wouldn\u2019t try to expose myself to that too much. Is that good advice?<\/p>\n

\u201cAny mainstream piece rather than just social? Any mainstream pieces or just social media pieces you\u2019re referring to?\u201d<\/p>\n

That reference to social media comments irked some fans, who use the platform to voice their opinion without being \u2018trolls\u2019.<\/p>\n

Speaking to Off The Ball, Dobson<\/a> felt that he fell into the same trap of dismissing the views of genuine supporters just because they came from an online platform.<\/p>\n

\u201cI did the same thing this year. We were getting destroyed on social media and I did the wrong thing, I got up there and said: \u2018Jeepers, these keyboard warriors\u2019, the old clich\u00e9, and it was absolutely the wrong thing to do,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s blind protectionism and then there\u2019s an underappreciation of those people who try to engage with the team.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think to attack them, what I did was certainly wrong.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bernard Jackman\u2019s brutal evisceration of Leo Cullen\u2019s \u2018delusional\u2019 request in wake of explosive press conferences<\/a><\/p>\n

Pressure on Cullen<\/p>\n

Cullen was also asked about the increasing pressure but the Leinster boss once again hit back, insisting that he is not feeling the strain in a negative way.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe amount of messages of support that I personally and the team have had, people want to back us. Why don\u2019t you report about that? All the positive messages from them rather than all the negative ones. Why does it always have to be negative pressure?\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI see the positive pressure because I see so many people supporting the team and me personally that were in Bilbao for the weekend.\u201d<\/p>\n

However, for Dobson, he sees it slightly differently.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a massive fear of losing and that sometimes makes you not as good a coach because you think, \u2018what if?\u2019\u201d the Stormers boss said.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou sit there, and I\u2019m sure they would have had the same experience in Bordeaux, and you think, \u2018geez, we can\u2019t lose this\u2019, and it starts to become quite negative.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re just desperate to be in that final next week and it doesn\u2019t feel like positive pressure.\u201d<\/p>\n

READ MORE: United Rugby Championship semi-finals: Predictions, teams, kick-off times, TV coverage and more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Stormers boss John Dobson admitted he did exactly the same thing by going after the supporters and revealed…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":485504,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[1100,61,60,208792,10562,28577,43,112,80772,14881],"class_list":["post-485503","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-home-page","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-john-dobson","tag-leinster","tag-leo-cullen","tag-news","tag-sports","tag-stormers","tag-united-rugby-championship"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/485503","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=485503"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/485503\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/485504"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=485503"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=485503"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=485503"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}