By Gavin Rich.
The DHL Stormers might have thought at some stages the luck just wasn’t with them but in the end they held on for a well deserved 26-20 win over their arch rivals the Vodacom Bulls in a high quality and pulsating Vodacom United Rugby Championship derby in Cape Town on Saturday.
The Stormers were most emphatically the better team in a high quality game that had the physicality of a test match but also at times the pace and tempo we used to associate with Super Rugby.
It was played in front of a massive and appreciative crowd and let it also be said also a great advert for Christmas rugby, certainly at the DHL Stadium, but the Bulls hung in and just didn’t go away on a night where they showed they scored three tries to two.
That though doesn’t tell the full story of the game, with the Stormers twice over the line in the first half for tries that were disallowed after consultation with the TMO, and then again in the second half when Damian Willemse flew in at the right corner flag but was adjudged to have knocked the ball on.
The first two disallowed tries were the ones that might have hurt the Stormers and would have been the big debating points had the Bulls, who for once was fronted by a pack that was better than them, particularly at scrum time, somehow managed to get up and get across the line as winners.
Both of them came within minutes of each other with the Stormers leading 16-10.
On both occasions Manie Libbok was lining up to kick the conversion that if successful would have made it 23-10 with just a few minutes to go until halftime.
The failure to get daylight between them and the Bulls when they thought they had it on the scoreboard could have caused the Stormers’ heads to drop.
But the 2023 version of the Stormers is made from sterner stuff though than that and early in the second half they created the needed bridgehead when four minutes after the restart Libbok slotted a penalty to make it 19-10.
It was a night where the Stormers, when in range, opted to go for posts, and with Libbok successful with all but one kick at the posts, it was an option that worked.
Cape team started the strongest
The Stormers started the stronger of the two teams and were 3-0 up after four minutes when Libbok slotted his first penalty from almost in front.
The Bulls have earned a lot of praise recently for their scrumming but the suspicion that this time they would meet their match was confirmed when the Stormers were awarded the first scrum penalty early doors.
An early Bulls lineout was also thrown skew and the Bulls were struggling to get into the game against a team that dominated the early collisions and which had centre Jean-Luc du Plessis, playing in his 50th game for the Stormers, joining the official man of the match, No8 Hacjivah Dayimani, in finding channels to get through the Bulls forwards.
With big Adre Smith again confirming why coach John Dobson rates him so highly with his barnstorming charges at the opposing defensive system, and the likes of Libbok, Damian Willemse and Ruhan Nel in particular at the back always looking capable of getting through the Bulls defence, the Stormers had momentum when Willemse slotted a neat drop-goal to make it 6-0.
However, the Bulls, at least in the first 30 minutes, appeared to have gained the old Stormers’ habit of being able to capitalise on scoring opportunities when they came.
They had two in that period, and they converted both. First lock Reinhardt Ludwig broke off the driving maul from the Bulls’ first visit to the Stormers red zone from a penalty in the 12th minute to make it 6-5, and then that ace try grabber Kurt-Lee Arendse chased down an Embrose Papier grubber kick to make it 10-5 after 17 minutes.
Flyhalf Johan Goosen struggled with the swirling wind and couldn’t convert either try from the touchline, but the Bulls would have boosted their confidence with the ease with which they appeared to be able to get across the Stormers line.
Great Defence
That is not to say though that the Stormers’ defence wasn’t good.
Indeed it was a standout, particularly at a late stage of the second half when the Bulls were trying desperately to get back into range on the scoreboard and were camping in Stormers territory.
They eventually did get the points they needed to get within a converted try of winning, but had to rely on a Chris Smith penalty eight minutes from time.
The Stormers had calmness under pressure to thank in large part for their win over European champions La Rochelle the previous week, and it was take two in that regard.
A penalty from Libbok brought them back to within one point three minutes after the Arendse try, and then came one of those horrible clashes in a tackle involving Gerhard Steenekamp and Neethling Fouche that led to a yellow card.
Some thought it might be red because it looked horrible, a lot worse than many incidents that do see red, but I thought the match officials got it right as Steenekamp was bent into the tackle.
They probably got the first disallowed try, with Suleiman Hartzenberg dotting down from a Manie Libbok cross kick but right on the dead ball line, right too, but there could be a debate about the second, when Deon Fourie powered over in a driving maul and was adjudged to have leveraged himself off the knee.
To me that looked like a case of the TMO trying too hard to find something wrong with the score.
Once in the ead they never relinquished it
Before that though Du Plessis had crossed for the first Stormers try that took them into a lead that they were never to relinquish.
Arendse scored in the first half and the Bulls’ other Springbok wing Canan Moodie was not to be denied, crossing off a long pass right on the corner flag to bring back what had been a 19-10 deficit to make it 19-17 after 51 minutes.
The Stormers had lost Du Plessis just before halftime and then the man who came on his replacement, Clayton Blommetjies, early in the second half, which meant with the 6/2 split between forwards and backs on the bench that Paul de Wet had to move from scrumhalf to the wing.
That did not stop the Stormers creating chances though and in the 59th minute the Stormers capitalised on some brilliant work from reserve hooker Andre-Hugo Venter and a good attack down the left flank after a Bulls attempted clearance had found its way into the hands of Willemse and Ruhan Nel crossed out on the left and ran the ball to near the posts.
The Stormers were ahead 26-17 and it remained that way until Smith’s penalty made it a nervy six-point lead in the final eight minutes but the Stormers finished the game deep in the Bulls territory as they made sure of their seventh consecutive win over their arch rivals.