A brace of tries in the last 10 minutes from 20-year-old replacement flyhalf Yaqeen Ahmed enabled the DHL Stormers to survive an unexpected test of nerve as they edged home 52-40 against the Scarlets in an action packed Vodacom URC fixture at the DHL Stadium on Saturday.
The Stormers scored eight tries so they comfortably made sure of the try-scoring bonus point and managed to get a full house of log points from the game and should be happy with that, but with 10 minutes to go they looked they might have to settle for a draw or even be edged out by the tenacious Welsh team.
Another five points at home. See you back here again next weekend. #STOvSCA @Vodacom #URC #inittogether https://t.co/iMXdgk4eJW
— DHL Stormers (@THESTORMERS) October 24, 2026
By that stage injuries had forced so many changes to the Stormers team that it was hard to keep up with who was off and who was on and which position players were playing.
Sacha Feinberg-Mngomezulu was still on the field when Ahmed was on, Cobus Reinach went off for an HIA assessment and then returned, Riley Norton was forced to move from lock to blindside flank when Deon Fourie was forced from the field.
But perhaps the most damaging of all from the Stormers’ viewpoint given the dominance of their scrum, was the departure from the field in the third quarter of the game of reserve hooker Lukhanyo Vokozela.
Starting hooker Andre-Hugo Venter had left the field in the first half with an injury, so with no hooker to draw on, the Stormers had to go to uncontested scrums.
SCARLETS EXPLOITED POROUS DEFENCE
That robbed them of their go-to advantage during a period when Scarlets were pouring through holes in the Stormers’ defensive system - indeed that was the case for most of the game - and with flank and skipper Paul de Villiers throwing the ball into the lineout that phase became unreliable too.
When the impressive Scarlets and Wales centre Joe Roberts completed his hat-trick of tries in the 65th minute it drew the scores level at 40-all with a quarter of an hour to play and given the momentum shift in the Scarlets’ favour at that stage you might have backed the visitors to win.
But if Stormers director of rugby John Dobson feels he got something out of a game he should have expected his team to win at a canter, and his much changed up selection appeared to reflect that expectation, it was the unexpected test of nerve in that final quarter.
Suddenly the Stormers had to dig deep, had to find a way to win, and they did, with Ahmed surging through for the score that broke the deadlock with seven minutes to play and after a period of sustained pressure from a Stormers team that set up camp at that point in the Scarlets 22.
Cometh the hour, cometh Yaqeen Ahmed who scores under the poles to put us back in front. ⛈️ 47-40 🔴 (73 mins) #STOvSCA @Vodacom #URC #inittogether https://t.co/uVQosahO3d
— DHL Stormers (@THESTORMERS) October 24, 2026
The Scarlets weren’t finished and tried to chase the score that would give them a share of the spoils but when a ball was dropped near the touchline wing Leolin Zas kicked it through.
He chased it himself but the bounce was an unlucky one for him. No matter for the Stormers, for Ahmed has great game sense and the Junior Springbok pivot was there to pick up the ball and score the try that made sure of the win and the full house of log points.
Ahmed, who showed a lot of composure when he came on, will have gained a lot from the experience, as would Junior Bok prop Olly Reid, who scored his first try in Stormers colours in his third game, and the 19 year old centre Markus Muller, who experienced a much more fraught first start than he would have hoped for but also showed composure when it was needed.
HOSTS COMFORTABLY AHEAD AT HALFWAY MARK
It never looked like it would need the Stormers to dig deep to win at halftime, when the Stormers led 33-14, but even in the first half, when the Stormers scored five tries to two, there were signs that would not have pleased the coaching staff.
In fact, the visiting coach might lament the massive turnover that there was in the game shortly before halftime, when just minutes after Ioan Jones scored what looked like a great try but then had it chalked off because of an inside pass that went forward the Stormers scored a try from an attacking lineout through Fourie.
That was on the stroke of halftime and what could have been a very close game at that point, with the Stormers just five points ahead, turned into a 19 point deficit and the Stormers winning easily.
It changed soon after halftime when first Macs Page and then Roberts scored well constructed tries that brought the Scarlets back to within five points.
SOME SPECTACULAR TRIES
The Stormers scored eight tries to the Scarlets’ six, so there were 14 tries in the game, and it is impossible to go through how all of them were scored, sufficeth it to say that the Scarlets did create holes in the Stormers’ defence way too easily, while both teams scored tries that were quite spectacular, like the spectacular try in the corner that required a big dive from Jones on the half hour mark and also the one to Pead before that was created by a moment of brilliance from Bok flyhalf Feinberg-Mngomezulu who swivelled through the gap and then produced a superb reverse pass to put the scrumhalf in.
But Mngomezulu didn’t stamp the control on the game that he should have been expectede to and also made four handling errors, and not all of those were forced, and that is not good enough for an international flyhalf.
In many ways his performance was symptomatic of the Stormers’ overall game.
For some reason in every couple of games they appear to feel the need to play Barbarians rugby and forget the basics, and this was one of those games.
Fortunately for them they got away with it, and obviously there was the mitigating factor of the disruption caused by a slew of injuries during the game and those uncontested scrums.
It goes without saying though that they are going to have to be a lot tighter and less sloppy when they host Ulster next week.
SCORES
DHL Stormers 52 - Tries: Zachary Porthen, Haashim Pead, Ntuthuko Mchunu, Seabelo Senatla, Deon Fourie, Olly Reid and Yaqeen Ahmed 2; Conversions: Sacha Feinberg-Mngomezulu 6.
Scarlets 40 - Tries: Joe Roberts 3, Ioan Jones, Macs Page and Josh MacLeod; Conversions: Carwyn Leggat-Jones 5.