Dombrandt hat-trick extinguishes the Stormers’ fight

Harlequins No 8 and captain Alex Dombrandt scored a hat-trick of tries to help his team overcome a spirited early challenge from the DHL Stormers and score a thumping 53-16 win in their second round Investec Champions Cup pool match at the Stoop in London on Saturday night.

There was also a hat-trick for wing Cadan Murley on a night where the Stormers showed pluck but later in the game the hosts ran riot. Just what to read into it all is hard to tell for the Stormers went in with a distinctly second or maybe even third string team in some areas given the injuries that have plagued them recently, and no-one really gave them much hope of beating a Harlequins team loaded with international players.

In the end the scoreline will indicate that it was a one-sided game but for a long time they were a lot more competitive than the end margin might suggest and their try near the end scored by the highly promising 19-year-old and which also featured Wandisile Simelane prominently in the buildup might in time prove an indication that the pain of defeat was not completely in vain.

The Harlequins put up a big score in their #InvestecChampionsCup win over the DHL Stormers 🃏 pic.twitter.com/nqk60WGncC

— SuperSport Rugby (@SSRugby) December 14, 2024

Simelane had easily his best game in a Stormers jersey and arguably for the first time since his move to Cape Town showed the abilities that made him such a rising star when he was a schoolboy and heading into age-group level at the Lions.


STORMERS LED UNTIL 30th MINUTE

Indeed, the Stormers weren’t headed in the game until the 30th minute when the experienced former England scrum-half Danny Care scored his team’s second try to make it 10-6. Had they made full use of some early scoring opportunities, the Stormers could well have been well ahead by then. But although the halftime stats reflected that it was the Stormers who got the better of the possession battle and were significantly the dominant team when it came to territory, it was Harlequins who led 19-6 at the break.

That was mainly because they were more clinical than a Stormers team that was completely changed up from the side that lost to Toulon in the first Champions Cup game in Gqeberha last week. The young Stormers team, like the Sharks earlier in the day, will have absorbed several lessons, and one of them was how costly errors can be, and how discipline can surrender field possession.

And against a team like Harlequins who were so much more efficient with their finishing, that was costly. It was the Harlequins winning the aerial battle that accounted for their halftime lead, but at that point the Stormers were still well in the fight.

At least two of the tries they conceded were soft, starting with the first of three scored by Harlequins left wing Adan Curley. The Stormers were ahead 6-0 at that point and were solid in a defensive scrum but somehow conspired to make a mess of trying to clear it, with scrumhalf Stefan Ungerer spilling the ball and Harlequins palming it across to the left and Curley wriggled over in the left corner.

COULDN’T FAUL THE EFFORT

The second try was also the product of the Stormers surrendering territory through indiscipline, while the third, the first scored by Dombrandt, featured both that aspect of the Stormers’ failing on the night as well as a missed tackle.

But you certainly couldn’t fault the Stormers for effort, and they started the game off in quite frenzied fashion. An early breakdown win set up the first penalty opportunity after just three minutes and Jurie Matthee stepped up to put his team 3-0 up.

Some eight minutes later the Stormers capitalised on more attacking momentum when Matthee kicked a second penalty to make it 6-0, and it could have been more. When Simelane knocked on soon after the restart from that second penalty it was in fact Harlequins’ first proper entry into the opposition half.

Later Simelane pounced on a misdirected cross kick from Smith but just didn’t have the pace to round it off, although an earlier pass to Seabelo Senatla might have put the wing in.

The Stormers continued to tackle tigerishly early in the second half, and it was something of a win when Smith elected to kick a penalty for posts to put his team 22-6 ahead. The Stormers responded with a well taken drop-goal from Matthee to make it 22-9 but then Ungerer was yellow carded, thus reducing the Stormers to 14 men, and after that it was as if someone had shouted “open the gates”.

In other words, once the hosts were 20 points ahead and any chance of the Stormers getting something out of the game was gone, and Quins had their try scoring brace, it was one-way traffic, helped by a couple of yellow cards that had the Stormers down on numbers.

Full marks to them though for striking for that late try when it was 14 against 15 and they had several players with no experience at this level and in their early 20s on the field. It was never going to be a night where the Stormers were going to get the ‘W’ and instead it was about personal growth. There were enough individual players who will feel they gained something from the experience.

The Stormers, like the Sharks, will be fielding a very different team when they face the Emirates Lions in their Vodacom United Rugby Championship derby next weekend so the defeat shouldn’t have any impact on their confidence.

Scores

Harlequins 53 - Tries: Alex Dombrandt 3, Cadan Murley 3, Danny Care and Sam Riley; Conversions: Marcus Smith 3 and Jarod Evans 2; Penalty: Marcus Smith.

DHL Stormers 16 - Try: JC Mars; Conversion: Jurie Matthee; Penalties: Jurie Matthee 2; Drop-goal: Jurie Matthee.