Stormers regain momentum by beating English leaders

The DHL Stormers stood up from their defeat to the Vodacom Bulls the previous week by scoring a convincing 45-29 win over the Gallagher Premiership log leaders Northampton Saints at Franklin’s Gardens on Saturday.

The Stormers led 26-19 at halftime in a game where they scored seven tries to five as they gave their fringe players a run and at the same time rebuilt some of the team’s overall confidence following last week’s 40-22 defeat to the Vodacom Bulls in Pretoria.

The Stormers didn’t take any of their national alignment camp members with them to England and of course, the Saints would have had several players missing to Guinness Six Nations action. Nonetheless, it was an interesting test of the quality and depth when comparing English club rugby and South African franchise rugby, with the South Africans coming out on top in a game where the coaches had extended benches in an attempt to give much-needed game time to fringe players.

As often happens when the coaches have that many players available - the Stormers had 26 in their match-day squad - it meant that the game lost its shape when wholesale changes were made in the third quarter.

The hosts had been quite fortunate to be just seven points behind, at 26-19 down, at halftime, and although they dominated territory for almost the entire third quarter, it was, in fact, the Saints who scored the next try, bringing them back to just a two-point deficit when the hour mark of the game arrived.

Given that the conversion rate from 22-metre line entries was a massive concern for the Stormers at Loftus last week, and arguably also in the first half against the Hollywoodbets Sharks before that, Stormers head coach might be scratching his head with some concern.

CLINICAL STORMERS

However, in the first half, the Stormers were clinical. They scored some good tries from broken play, one of them an excellent opportunistic score from centre Wandesile Simelane, who delivered a promising and busy performance in his first start for his new team.

The other headline selection was Hacjivah Dayimani being tried as a wing replacement and the No 8/flanker underlined that potential by using his pace to score the try that finally took the Stormers back to more than a score ahead and effectively wrapped up the game. After that, there was a flurry of scoring, with the Stormers always set to emerge as comfortable winners.

Young flyhalf Jurie Matthee produced a solid performance, the scrum was dominant except for a brief period shortly before halftime, the Stormers were good in their scavenging for the ball on the ground and won quite a few penalties at the breakdown. The negative apart from the aforementioned failure to convert territorial dominance in the middle parts of the match was an injury that saw No 8 Keke Morabe limp off the field.

The forward had been in excellent form earlier in the game so it would be a cruel blow for both him and his team if, as seems likely, he might be ruled out for a period of time.

The Stormers return to competition action two weeks from now when they host Edinburgh at DHL Stadium.