The Hollywoodbets Sharks ended their Vodacom URC drought in Cape Town with an emphatic 30-19 win over the DHL Stormers in front of a full house at DHL Stadium with a performance that can be regarded as a strong statement in favour of their new coach JP Pietersen.
Up until this game, there was some debate over whether the Sharks’ wins over Saracens and Clermont-Auvergne in the Investec Champions Cup and the Vodacom Bulls in the URC really represented the much-hoped-for turnaround for the long-suffering Sharks supporters.
With a return game between these teams set for Hollywoodbets Kings Park in Durban next Saturday, perhaps the Sharks need to bottle their celebrations for the next seven days, but certainly this performance, which resulted in a four-try-to-two triumph and a full house of log points for the visitors, should be seen as a massive step in the right direction.
Make no mistake, the Stormers were diabolical, and it needs to be said that the warning bells that have been clanging in the most recent home games did set up this kind of result as a possibility. They did outlast the Bulls here in a titanic derby three weeks ago, but they were nowhere in their away Champions Cup game against Harlequins and were poor, although they had too much firepower in the end, for a weakened Leicester Tigers last week.
The Hollywoodbets Sharks stun the DHL Stormers in Cape Town 🦈🔥#SSRugby | #VURC pic.twitter.com/I2AuAclLd8
— SuperSport Rugby (@SSRugby) January 24, 2026
Their director of rugby, John Dobson, said something disturbing in a press conference the day before the game - “Maybe we feel too much pressure (to entertain) when we play at home”. It has looked like that to this scribe ever since they came back from a winning sequence of five matches overseas, where they played pragmatic rugby, and started to fall back into their old habit of too many Hail Mary passes and just too much loose rugby.
The Stormers love to talk about their running DNA, but, and this was written after last week’s game too, so it is not drawing on hindsight, surely the DNA the Stormers’ many fans want is a winning DNA.
NO-NONSENSE APPROACH
In this game, there was far too much play that wouldn’t have been out of place in a touch game on the beach and the Sharks, with their no-nonsense approach and their planning, feasted on it.
The Sharks exploited what looked like yet another soft start for the Stormers, with four mistakes made by the hosts in their own half before an excellent driving maul try to Jason Jenkins. Phepsi Buthelezi scored another in the second half, and that capped a magnificent performance from the Sharks flanker, who came out easily the better in the clash with his opposition No 6 Paul de Villiers on the day.
The Sharks scored a third driving maul try in the last 10 minutes, their fourth of the game, with Andre Esterhuizen dotting down, and as always, the Springbok centre was outstanding. Since Bok coach Rassie Erasmus has started using him as a flanker, his play has gone through the roof, and he was a big part of the reason the Sharks were such comprehensive victors against their coastal rivals.
The Jenkins try was converted from touch by Jordan Hendrikse, and almost immediately, the Stormers did show what they can do with their attacking game when they won the ball back off the kick off, and skipper Sacha Feinberg-Mngomezulu ghosted through to set up the try for Damian Willemse on the right.
Feinberg-Mngomezulu, unlike his opposite number, was unable to convert from touch. The Sharks, though, had a clever percentage game up their sleeve, and a good kick of 60 metres from the first scrum of the game saw Hartzenberg exposed on the right as the cross kick fell safely into the hands of young winger Jaco Coetzee, who could run across to make the conversion easier.
It was 14-5 and then soon 17-5 when Hendrikse kicked his first of two penalties in the game. The Stormers had started looking complacent; their defence was again passive as it had been in the first half of most of their home games, and suddenly they were chasing. The Sharks by contrast, were mostly accurate with their defence, and while they did concede some ball at their own lineouts, they generally bossed that phase while having the early edge in the scrums.
The Stormers have chased games well overseas, the Munster game in Limerick in particular, but was something they did not do particularly well in this game, simply because they always seemed so frenetic and were poor in protecting their possession when they had it, like when they were playing overseas.
TYPICAL SOUTH AFRICAN DERBY
Feinberg-Mngomezulu will always produce his brilliant moments, and a quick tap penalty sent in
Damian Willemse and at 17-12 the Stormers were back in the game with 14 minutes to go and for the remainder of the half, with the Stormers winning a succession of penalties in a row, they looked like they were getting stronger.
“The Stormers bench will win it” was a consensus in the press box at halftime, but that quickly was scotched when Salmaan Moerat came on as a replacement and, within a few minutes, was on his way back to the side of the field after being yellow-carded. That was after a succession of Sharks penalties near the Stormers' line, and it was immediately after Moerat was dispatched that the Sharks got it right and mauled over for the Buthelezi try.
Suddenly, it was a 10-point game again, and while the Stormers did have several entries into the Sharks' 22 in the second half, their own feared maul just didn’t fire, and they also weren’t helped by a shoddy all-round lineout performance that kept letting the Sharks off the hook. The expectation was that the Stormers maul would trouble the Sharks, but on the day, it was the other way around.
That was the sort of game it was - a typical South African derby where the unexpected kept happening. That said, the Stormers didn’t help themselves and have plenty to think about as they head to Durban for the rematch next week.
SCORES
Hollywoodbets Sharks 30 - Tries: Jason Jenkins, Jaco Williams, Phepsi Buthelezi and Andre Esterhuizen; Conversions: Jordan Hendrikse 2; Penalties: Jordan Hendrikse 2.
DHL Stormers 19 - Tries: Suleiman Hartzenberg and Damian Willemse; Penalty try; Conversion: Sacha Feinberg-Mngomezulu.