The DHL Stormers said ahead of their two-match tour that concluded the league stage of the Vodacom URC season that they’d be disappointed if they returned to Cape Town not in the first position on the log that they were in when they departed. So it goes without saying that they see the trip as a failure.
And it was from the viewpoint of where they have ended up. Their 22-16 defeat to Cardiff in the final game not only ended any hope of them still finishing top, and boy did Ulster come close to still making that a possibility in their narrow and slightly controversial defeat to Glasgow, it also knocked them out of the top two.
So unless other results conspire in their favour on the quarterfinal weekend, and let’s not forget that the Stormers hosted the 2023 final against Munster off a third-place finish in the league, they will be travelling should they win their quarterfinal against Cardiff rather than hosting another plum game at the DHL Stadium.
It is a very different scenario that they face now than what was possible when they bossed Glasgow in their most recent home league game, one that saw them move back into the pole position they held with some degree of comfort for most of the first part of the season and a bit beyond that.
The sobering reality for the Stormers is that after reaching round 9 unbeaten, they have won only four of their last 10 games in the URC, with one draw (against Ulster). That’s quite an alarming fall away, which started with the successive home and away defeats to the Hollywoodbets Sharks at the end of January.
FLIP SIDE SWAYS TO THE POSITIVE
However, there is a flip side that sways towards the positive when it comes to their outlook for the remainder of the competition. For a start, Cardiff would have been their preferred quarterfinal opponents of the five possible options going into the final round.
That may seem bizarre given that they have just lost to that team, but it isn’t, because what needs to be factored in is that Cardiff’s win was achieved on a 4G surface. And while for obvious reasons they don’t want to say it publicly, the Stormers do have massive problems dealing with that surface - as indeed do the other South African teams if you look at their histories on plastic fields.
Against both Ulster and Cardiff, two games both played on 4G, the Stormers struggled defensively, with the opposition almost always managing to get momentum when they got the ball in their hands. It was very different to the Glasgow game played on grass, where they easily shut out a team that is renowned for its attacking prowess.
The obvious caveat to that is that the 4G surface, where momentum is so hard to stop, then makes the other big failing of the Cardiff game, which was their inability to convert their several 22 entries, less easy to explain. Cardiff are used to their home ground, and familiarity would have helped them learn how to defend there, but generally there have been games where the Stormers have looked disconnected on attack this season and it is a concern.
Make no mistake, the Cardiff defence was outstanding against the Stormers, and that is why any post-match analysis shouldn’t be too hard on the Cape team. The Stormers have conspired against themselves and there was a small element of that in Cardiff, but not to nearly the same degree. Sometimes you just have to acknowledge when the opposition play well and Cardiff were outstanding.
SENATLA RETURN WILL BRING MISSING STRIKE POWER
It wasn’t the first time this season though that the Stormers failed to fire a shot and that issue could be partially resolved if, as expected, Seabelo Senatla makes his long-awaited return from injury in the Cape Town quarterfinal. Left wing Leolin Zas has played every game, but the Stormers have a problem on the right, where Damian Willemse and Wandisile Simelane have moonlighted out of position. Dylan Maart didn’t turn out to be quite the acquisition they initially thought he was, and Suleiman Hartzenberg has struggled with form and looks less speedy since returning from injury.
The Stormers haven’t had the pace out wide that they’ve boasted historically and that strike power has long been a big part of their game model. Perhaps Senatla’s return will address that.
NEL’S RETURN WILL BRING DEFENSIVE MOJO BACK
There is also an aspect of their defensive vulnerability that needs to be acknowledged. When they have struggled this season with their defence, it has always been in games where the man who has also turned out to be a very good regular captain, Ruhan Nel, has been absent. When he’s been present, which he is expected to be against Cardiff, they have comfortably topped the defence stats in the URC.
It may not be a coincidence that Nel was absent because of a calf injury in the two games overseas in which the Stormers shipped no less than 10 tries, many of those scored in similar fashion in the wing channel.
The Stormers recognise that Nel’s absence has been a huge contributor to their defensive problems overseas, and another was the 4G surface. None of the five successive overseas wins earlier in the season were achieved on 4G surfaces, and the games in Belfast and Cardiff were the first time they’d played on 4G this season.
As defence coach Norman Laker said after the Ulster game, “Every time we play on 4G surfaces we tell ourselves that we have played on them before and are now getting used to it, but then when the game arrives that turns out not to be the case.”
DELIGHTED TO SEE THE BACK OF 4G
The good news for Stormers fans is that, with Glasgow not using Scotstoun if they reach a final because the stadium is too small, they will not see a 4G surface again in the competition. So with Nel expected back, that’s a double positive when it comes to defence, and hopefully Senatla will bring an extra threat at the back.
Cardiff shouldn’t be the same factor on a grass field in Cape Town in front of a crowd supporting the opposition as they were in front of their own crowd on a 4G surface alien to the opposition. What was bizarre about that result was that the Stormers scrummed the Cardiff pack to pieces and will fancy their chances of doing it again at DHL Stadium, with less chance this time of Cardiff being able to escape the noose.
Leinster are now in the pound seats as their top-two position means they have home-ground advantage in a semifinal, but the Stormers will know from experience that anything can happen in the knockouts and apart maybe from Leinster, they will consider all the other teams beatable.