Wonky lineout performance plunges Stormers out of Champions Cup

A Boris Palu try two minutes from time clinched Racing 92 a 31-22 win at La Defense Arena in Paris that ensured that the DHL Stormers ended their Investec Champions Cup campaign as they started it - with a defeat to a French team.

The Stormers were very much in the game as they trailed by two points, 24-22, as the clock wound down after earlier flyhalf Jurie Matthee had missed a difficult long range penalty that would have given them the lead.

However, as they did the whole night, the Stormers kept on turning over possession and their opponents were happy to capitalise on that charity.

The Stormers actually held their line well on defence in the final minutes when the hosts were pressing for the line, and reserve lock JD Schickerling turned over an attacking Racing 92 lineout, which was the reverse of the trend of the game.

But eventually, with the referee awarding Racing 92 a couple of penalties that enabled them to sustain their attacking momentum and the pressure they were exerting, Palu reached out and dotted down over the line as his forwards drove him over.

By going more than a score ahead it meant the Stormers were denied even a losing bonus point, and although they had a last gasp chance as they kicked ahead into open field, it was not to be and they had to deal with the reality that for the first time in their participation in the elite European competition they will not be in the round of 16.

Never stopped fighting, but not to be in Paris. #R92vSTO #iamastormer pic.twitter.com/HGkgOeV6Vj

— DHL Stormers (@THESTORMERS) January 18, 2025

This was confirmed by Harlequins’ win over Glasgow Warriors in the game played at the same time.

WENT ALL OUT BUT LOSS WON’T HURT

Whether that will be any huge upset for them is debatable as although there was no denying they gave their all in the game and did give getting the win a full go, if the group as a whole, meaning the management included, were really treating the game as a win at all costs moment then last week’s man of the match Warrick Gelant and fellow Springboks Manie Libbok, BJ Dixon and Deon Fourie, among others, would not have been watching it from the stands.

Indeed, given how much of the game the Stormers had, meaning how much territory and possession they had over the 80 minutes, and how they gifted the hosts their points with basic errors, you have to wonder if this was not an opportunity missed by the Stormers.

In the sense that if those players had been playing, they could have won quite comfortably.

But of course the realities of playing in two competitions mean you do have to prioritise.

It was because they are in a relegation battle in the Top 14 that Stade Francais sent what was effectively a second string team to Loftus to be annihilated by the Vodacom Bulls earlier in the day, and the Stormers have made no secret that, as their coach John Dobson put it last week, the Vodacom United Rugby Championship is their “day job”.

ROOS WAS IMMENSE

There is a big URC clash with the in-form Leinster side coming up next Saturday and it is understandable that Dobson is prioritising that, while giving some of his fringe and previously injured players a chance to get much needed game time.

That secondary aim of the game was met for the Stormers, with Evan Roos signalling in no uncertain terms not only that he is back in form but also in a hungry mood.

Roos would have been a deserved man of the match had the Stormers won, while their scrum was also yet again dominant throughout, and this against a scrum that had delivered among the best stats of the competition up until this game.

Unfortunately for the Stormers, and it may not be a coincidence that Schickerling was also one of the players missing at the start as he played this game off the bench, this was a night where their lineout that had previously been so impressive across both competitions went walkabout.

Racing 92 were able to lead 19-10 at halftime because they made a lot out of very little, and fashioned scores out of nothing, but the reason they were able to do that was because all three tries scored in the first 40 minutes were effectively because of turnover ball off the lineouts.

The Stormers had dominated the first 10 minutes to the point that Racing hardly got their hands on the ball and hardly got into the Stormers half.

The Stormers pressed hard deep inside the Racing 22 and came close to scoring on a few occasions but after kicking the first penalty to touch, they eventually decided, probably correctly, to go for posts and Matthee put them 3-0 up.

RACING SHOWED YOU CAN’T RELAX AGAINST FRENCH TEAMS

The Stormers looked like the dominant team but you can never relax against a French side as the minute they get a gap they get their crowd in behind them and it is a different game. And that is what happened, as in the 13th minute they lost a lineout and Racing capitalised by looking after their possession really well and the space was created for wing Vinaya Habosi to go over in the corner.

Five minutes later big Fiji centre Josua Tuisavo, a winner of the Champions Cup a couple of times when he played for Toulon, bumped off a Stormers tackler also after his team had been gifted possession and the attacking momentum led to a try to the other wing, Max Spring.

The pattern of the game was set, and while the Stormers came back into it with a good try to replacement hooker Andre-Hugo Venter, who was almost as excellent as Roos at some stages of the game, to trail by just two points, the charity continued with a glaring error on the stroke of halftime.

This time it wasn’t the poaching of a lineout or an overthrow of a conventional lineout that cost the Stormers, but the loss of concentration that allowed Racing to take a quick throw in near the Stormers line.

The ball was spun wide and Habosi went over for his second try. It was just before halftime so instead of the Stormers going into the break just two points behind, which would have been no less than they deserved, the deficit was nine points.

The Stormers had their chances to cut that deficit in the first 10 minutes of the second half but it was Racing who scored next, this time Spring the profiteer from a pinpoint cross kick.

To be fair, the Stormers defensive system always looked stretched by the Racing running game.

The try wasn’t converted but Racing were ahead 24-10 with 25 minutes to play.

The Stormers defence had been in disarray in the buildup to the try but the source of the Racing attack was again the same - a lost Stormers lineout.

DID NOT THROW IN THE TOWEL

To the Stormers’ credit they did not throw in the towel and the arrival of scrumhalf Herschel Jantjies, Shcikerling and in particular Paul de Villiers had an effect.

Suddenly the Stormers got the bit between their teeth and tries to Jantjies himself, who took an inside pass from Matthee after he had set up the flyhalf on a good attacking line, and then Marcel Theunissen after a clever little snip down the left touchline from a loose scrum by Jantjies, put them back in the game.

Had Matthee converted Theunissen’s try from the touchline the scores would have been levelled, but it went wide, and then so did the long range penalty attempt from touch and only just in the Racing half not long after that.

It was a game of fine margins and realistically speaking it was going to be a tough ask for the Stormers had they gone through to the round of 16, as their seeding would have been low and they’d have had to travel.

Their chance of doing well in the competition and challenging for silverware were really blown on the first weekend when they lost to Toulon and everything has been a bonus since then.

Scores

Racing 92 31 - Tries: Vinaya Habosi 2, Max Spring 2 and Boris Palu; Conversions: Nolan LeGarrec 3.

DHL Stormers 22 - Tries: Andre-Hugo Venter, Herschelle Jantjies and Marcel Theunissen; Conversions: Jurie Matthee 2; Penalty: Jurie Matthee.