Stormers reckon revenge best when it arrives quickly

In among the shame that the DHL Stormers felt immediately after their humiliating Vodacom Super Rugby Unlocked clash at Loftus there was one little fact that cheered them up - the chance of getting revenge on the Vodacom Bulls wasn’t going to be too long in coming.

Far from feeling any psychological hangover from that day just over three weeks ago when the Bulls rattled up a 39-6 win that was shortened by 15 minutes because of stormy weather, the Stormers players, now turning over a completely new slate in more ways than one as they pull on the blue and white hoops of Western Province for the Carling Currie Cup, are excited about the chance of playing their arch-rivals again so soon. It’s a chance for redemption, complete redemption, and such an opportunity doesn’t usually come this quickly.

“It was very tough accepting a loss like the one we suffered at Loftus because we are a very proud team but I remember very clearly how excited we were after that game when it was mentioned that we would be playing them again within four weeks,” said lock Salmaan Moerat during a break in the Cape team’s preparation for Saturday’s Newlands return.

“You don’t usually get a chance to redeem yourselves against opponents who beat you as thoroughly as the Bulls did that day so quickly. So this is a game we are really excited about and we are eager to use to show that we are not the team people saw in Pretoria.”

There have been some rather odd comparisons between the Bulls and multiple English Premier League champions Liverpool and Manchester United in the media this week. Odd because, for a start, if Liverpool played in a Premier League truncated to just six games, of which four were at home, they would most emphatically not have experienced a 30-year trophy drought in that competition.

The two WP camp members, Moerat and forwards coach Rito Hlungwani, might have issued a reminder of what happened to Liverpool in their recent meeting with Aston Villa, where they lost 7-2, when the question was put to them at a zoom press conference. But they didn’t really need to do that in order to air the view that sometimes sport can deliver some really weird and quick changes in fortune.

WP, their coach John Dobson and some of the players involved in Saturday’s game had their own experience of a miraculous turn-around in the Currie Cup in 2018. WP put 40 points on the board in the first half of a final Currie Cup league game away at Loftus that was, ironically, also curtailed by weather. A week later they were lucky to squeak home in the semifinal at Newlands.

“I do remember that game very well, and if I remember correctly the Bulls took us to extra time,” recalled Moerat.

“That is an excellent example of how a week can be a long time in rugby. One week you can be dominated, the next week you can dominate your opponent. That’s the way it is in team sport. And we’ve had not just one week, but four weeks to work on what we did wrong when we went to Loftus. We have prepared really well for this game and are looking forward to it.”

Hlungwani laughed at the references to Liverpool and to Manchester United, and was probably slyly joking when he mentioned that it took Liverpool 30 years after their last success in 1990 before they won the league title again. Instead he said that as a soccer fan he saw the Stormers as being similar to local soccer giants Orlando Pirates.

And he left it up to the listeners to decide if there was any sarcasm intended when he followed up by congratulating the Bulls for winning the Unlocked trophy.

“I must send my congratulations to the Bulls, they’ve done really well and I stand to be corrected, they were the only team that got to fulfil all their fixtures,” said Hlungwani.

“They did really well to come out and use a good draw to win the competition. They had four home games and two away games, the one away game they lost to the Cheetahs. We played four way games and two home games. They did really well to adjust to the situation they faced and to win it under the circumstances.”

We will leave the question of whether that was said with a sense of irony or not to Hlungwani, but there isn’t too much doubt about which competition WP have always been taking more seriously. The Currie Cup is decided over a double round, and while the unwanted bye forced by last week’s cancellation of the Stormers’ game against the Sharks because of Covid has thrown a potential spanner in the works by disrupting the momentum the Stormers were building after Loftus, Moerat wasn’t so sure.

“Yes, it was an unwanted bye and may have disrupted the momentum we were gathering but you can also look at it another way. We have now had six rounds of games and maybe the break came at the right time. The guys came back on Monday from the week off refreshed and determined and hungry to do well,” said Moerat.