It has been described as the “tour from hell” and also as “Mission Impossible”, but the toughness of the four-match trip that the DHL Stormers embarked upon with their departure from Cape Town on Sunday could just work for them.

The 19-18 win over the Hurricanes at Newlands this past Friday wasn’t enough to turn around the negativity that swamped Cape rugby after the shock defeat to the Lions in the opening game the week before, and which has arguably been around since the Currie Cup final last October.

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It was a stuttering, bumbling display from a team that looked like it wasn’t quite sure what game it should be playing, and far from being the rousing response that the Stormers were hoping for, they were lucky to win against a Hurricanes team that itself is no great shakes.

However, the Stormers have been in a situation before where they have started the season with criticism raining down on them, and have then turned it around by winning a game they weren’t expected to.

The occasion in question was in the 2011 season, when a couple of narrow scrapes at home left Newlands underwhelmed, only for a comprehensive win over the Vodacom Bulls at Loftus – the first time a victory had been scored at that venue in ages – to change the sentiment.

On Friday they play a Crusaders team that may have been rendered vulnerable by the injury that has ruled Richie McCaw out of rugby for eight weeks, but which nonetheless will start as overwhelming favourites given the poor record of South African teams in Christchurch.

Although a tough assignment for his team, Stormers skipper Jean de Villiers seems to think it may work for his men, and he may be right in hinting that being cast into the role of underdogs could be just what his side need.

In both matches they have played so far the Stormers started as favourites.

“Look, going to Christchurch to play against the Crusaders is really tough, as you can note by the fact that no South African team has won there in ages,” said De Villiers after the Hurricanes game.

“But that also means it is a great challenge for us. If we win there we would have achieved something special.”

Indeed, and there could be no better way for the Stormers to turn around their season.

MASSIVE ASK

It will be a massive ask, but both De Villiers and coach Allister Coetzee think the lateness of the converted try that won the match against the Hurricanes may be a good sign and work for them.

“I see things and glimpses of three or four years ago where we scraped out wins, we started winning narrowly and then we started to get confidence and momentum from that,” said Coetzee.

The coach was in fact referring to 2011, the year of that Bulls victory, but he could also have been referring to 2012, when the Stormers topped the log.

What he neglected to say though is that the Stormers appear to have lost their unwavering faith and clarity in the game-plan that saw them to the play-offs in those seasons.

On Friday night’s evidence, with the team at times looking as if they thought they were on Camps Bay beach playing touch rugby, they may have bowed to media and public pressure by moving too far away from the template that made them challengers.

That is what separates this team from the 2012 one that travelled from Cape Town straight after a bruising derby against the Bulls and beat a strong Highlanders team in Dunedin in the deep south of New Zealand seven days later.

The Stormers’ players don’t all look like they are on the same page, and whatever the intention is with their game-plan, they need to start looking more coherent and together than they did against the Hurricanes or the Crusaders will thump them.

Perhaps, as De Villiers says, the win will bring the confidence that was missing in Cape Town three days ago, and everything will slot into place.

“This one-point win was huge for us, it doesn’t matter how we got it,” said De Villiers.

It may not matter how they got it, but if they are to beat the Crusaders, they do need to know how they are going to go about doing it.

There wasn’t too much evidence of that this past Friday, so it is a tall order that awaits the Stormers over the next four weeks.