An 80th-minute penalty try snatched the DHL Stormers a 38-all draw against Ulster in Belfast that might have left the home fans feeling aggrieved and yet it was the visitors who should really have ended a pulsating game feeling that they should have got more out of the contest.
The penalty try was awarded by referee Andrea Piardi because there was a clear high tackle and head contact on Stormers wing Leolin Zas from Ulster scrumhalf Nathan Doak as he tried to force his way over the tryline.
Doak was the last tackler and Zas was on the line so the penalty try was the right decision - had Doak not put in that illegal tackle a try would definitely have been scored.
Leolin Zas is caught in a high tackle and it's a penalty try for the DHL Stormers 🌩️🏉#VURC | #SSRugby pic.twitter.com/zvSThypk2B
— SuperSport Rugby (@SSRugby) May 8, 2026
The penalty-try decision meant the Stormers got three points out of the game rather than two as the Cape team had accumulated their four-try bonus point and had the penalty try not been awarded and Ulster had survived, with the penalty try coming with just a few seconds left on the clock, the Stormers would also have picked up a second bonus point for not losing by more than seven.
VISITORS LOOKED STRONGER BUT COULDN’T TAKE ADVANTAGE
However, it was a game where the Stormers looked the stronger team for long periods and when they went ahead 31-26 with just over a quarter of hour to go they looked like they had the game won.
At that stage it looked like the slow poison had worked and the Stormers had become physically dominant.
However Ulster, for whom former Stormers No8 Juarno Augustus was the star player, could not be faulted for bravery and it was their tenacity in resisting the Stormers for the long periods they were under the cosh and their ability to score when they needed to that saw them ending the game deserving of a share of the spoils.
Kok, a former Sharks and Western Province wing as well as Blitzbok, scored three tries that were almost identical, and his third in the 70th minute brought the scores level at 31-all.
Then five minutes later reserve hooker Eric O’Sullivan dotted down between the posts as Ulster showed what a bit of possession can do in terms of getting a team momentum on a 4G surface, as indeed they had for most of their other five tries.
THE DRAW MEANS STORMERS END THE WEEKEND IN SECOND SPOT
The Doak conversion made it 38-31 to Ulster and with just four minutes remaining it effectively put a win beyond the grasp of the Stormers, but they would have known a draw would significantly bolster their chances of at least finishing in the top two.
And sure enough, thanks to those three log points the Stormers are beyond the range of the third-placed Lions as well as fourth-placed Leinster ahead of their meeting in Dublin on Saturday.
So while Glasgow winning against Cardiff at the Scotstoun with a bonus point edged the Scottish team back to the top of the log, at least the Stormers will end the penultimate round in second position with the final league game against Cardiff to come.
That shouldn’t have been the case though, for the Stormers did let themselves down with their discipline at crucial stages of the game.
There were two brain farts from Evan Roos that conceded penalties as his team looked like scoring as they attacked metres from the Ulster line and those were costly, as was the one conceded by Ben-Jason Dixon not long after halftime when he was correctly adjudged to have wrapped his arms around Ulster fullback Mike Lowry at the genesis of the attack that put Zas over in the left corner.
Ulster had taken an unlikely 21-17 lead to halftime and had that Zas try stood and the Stormers had retaken the lead at that point, with the Stormers at the time starting to exert massive physical and territorial pressure on their opponents, it might have been a very different game.
Not that Dixon was to blame as much as Roos was - it was one of those fine margin incidents, even though it was the correct one.
A 50/50 CALL THAT WENT AGAINST THEM
There was also a later incident where Stormers scrumhalf Imad Khan was played by Doak when he was off his feet when close to the Ulster line and in the act of going for the try.
Another referee might have yellow carded the Ulster scrumhalf and awarded the Stormers a penalty try.
It was their self-inflicted wounds though that will be remembered most by the Stormers, who let it be said may also have missed the calmness that Deon Fourie might have brought to their effort had he not been injured in the early minutes.
It was a croc roll from Ulster captain Iain Henderson that caused the Fourie injury and he was yellow carded, with the card being upgraded to a 20 minute red by the bunker.
Iain Henderson's yellow card is upgraded to a red after this clean on Deon Fourie 🟥❌
— SuperSport Rugby (@SSRugby) May 8, 2026
📺 Stream #VURC on DStv: https://t.co/0P0NNhnwKw pic.twitter.com/ZRURBpk2zA
Ulster had scored through Kok after just three minutes, with the Stormers coming up with an immediate riposte by sending in Roos for his 12th URC try of the season after a bullocking charge from Ntuthuko Mchunu as Fourie ran a clever decoy line to create the space needed.
It was soon after that Fourie was injured, and then came the first of a brace of tries to Mngomezulu, who made some mistakes in the game but those were easily outweighed by his massive all-round presence in the game.
Sacha slices through the Ulster defence for a beauty 😮💨
— Vodacom United Rugby Championship (URC) (@URCOfficial_RSA) May 8, 2026
A massive response in the race for a home Quarter-Final 💪
Be there for every moment - LIVE on SuperSport 📺🔥@Vodacom #URC | #ULSvSTO pic.twitter.com/QpQvz87zgC
The flyhalf kicked a penalty to make it 17-7 and with the Stormers at that point playing against 14 men, it looked like Ulster were in deep strife, but a 29th minute try from Kok, scoring again off an over the top pass, brought the hosts back to within three.
The Stormers should then have scored to restore the 10-point deficit but that cued the first of Roos’s errors as he ran into Ulster defenders ahead of the ball as his teammates drove towards the line.
Doak, who rivalled Augustus for the best home player award, took the penalty quickly and ran the ball into the Stormers half and it was from that territorial position that they put in the other wing Zac Ward in for the try that regained Ulster the lead less than five minutes before halftime.
It wouldn’t be too much of a stretch to call it a 14 point swing.
WOULD HAVE BEEN A FRUSTRATED TEAM AT HALFTIME
Then came the second Roos incident, again with the Stormers looking set to score, and they would have been a frustrated unit as they headed into halftime.
That frustration continued into the second half as little errors and some 50/50 calls against them, plus the perfectly correct marginal call against Dixon, kept them from taking the control that they always threatened to take in the game.
In the end they will take the draw for after all they were playing at a venue where they have only tasted defeat before tonight, but when they do their wash-up session later in the weekend they will feel they should have got the full five which would have kept them in pole position on the log.
Given they were so close to defeat, sneaking the draw was important and something to celebrate, but in reality the Stormers looked like they didn't know what to think after the final whistle blew, and that was understandable.
For in many ways it was a missed opportunity.
Fought hard until the final whistle and take three points in Belfast. #ULSvSTO #inittogether @Vodacom #URC pic.twitter.com/bxgGROiyI0
— DHL Stormers (@THESTORMERS) May 8, 2026
SCORES
Ulster 38 - Tries: Werner Kok 3, Zac Ward, Mike Lowry and Eric O’Sullivan; Conversions: Nathan Doak 4.
DHL Stormers 38 - Tries: Evan Roos, Sacha Feinberg-Mngomezulu 2 and Imad Khan; Penalty try; Conversions: Sacha Feinberg-Mngomezulu 4; Penalty: Sacha Feinberg-Mngomezulu.