The Harlequins showed why everyone rates them so highly for their exciting running rugby by scoring three late tries but it was too little too late as the DHL Stormers ended with a 32-28 win at the DHL Stadium that secured their passage to the Heineken Champions Cup quarterfinals.
The round of 16 clash was watched by a crowd well in excess of 30 000 and it lived up to its billing as a spectacle. However, the end winning margin of four points gives a false gloss to the game, for it was never as close as that, and the Stormers knew they had the game won when Willie Engelbrecht dotted down off a driving maul with six minutes to go.
You could argue they’d won it long before that, but at 32-7 with so little time left on the clock the win really was beyond Harlequins.
?? Storming into the quarter-finals ??@THESTORMERS take down Harlequins 32-28 to move into the last 8 of the #HeinekenChampionsCup
— Heineken Champions Cup (@ChampionsCup) April 1, 2023
How far will they go? ?? pic.twitter.com/Y8JSfCzRxi
So just like was the case when Munster did something similar in Durban in the other Champions Cup game played on South African soil, you would have to class all three of the tries Harlequins scored in those crazy final minutes as consolation scores.
Still, with the memory of a similar late game fade against the Cell C Sharks in the Vodacom United Rugby Championship possibly still in his memory, coach John Dobson may just be a little concerned about how his team struggled to slow the ball down in those final minutes.
Significantly, Deon Fourie was off the field at that point, and the man-of-the-match’s value to his team may have been underlined as much when he was off the field than when he was on it.
Not that he didn’t do yeoman work on the field, with his first-half try-scoring brace setting the Stormers on the road to victory.
The first one came pretty much off the first play of the game, with an audacious Manie Libbok cross kick near his own 22 being successfully chased by Seabelo Senatla, and then it was the brilliance of Hacjivah Dayimani and the skill of Dan du Plessis and Suleiman Hartzenberg, plus a carry from skipper Steven Kitshoff making the try. It was Dayimani who put in the final pass.
5??5?? SECONDS ??????
— Heineken Champions Cup (@ChampionsCup) April 1, 2023
The @THESTORMERS pick up where the @SharksRugby left off as @Deonf scores the opening try in the opening minute ??#HeinekenChampionsCup pic.twitter.com/WTZeKsOOiP
The Stormers allowed the visitors to bounce back too easily with a driving maul try to No 8 Alex Dombrandt that levelled the scores at 7-all after just four minutes. The game was billed as a spectacle, and that was what the crowd was getting.
The Stormers were significantly the stronger team in the first quarter, and Harlequins hardly got their hands on the ball and into the Stormers’ territory in that period.
WILLEMSE X-FACTOR
It took just another four minutes for the Stormers to regain the lead, a lead they were never to relinquish, with Kitshoff dotting down as the Cape team drove over the line.
Libbok had a poor game kicking from the tee by his standards and he missed the conversion, but the Stormers were completely dominant, with Harlequins managing to make just nine carries in the space of the first 18 minutes. The Stormers also enjoyed a 75% territorial advantage.
Then came Fourie’s second try as he broke off a driving maul. Libbok again missed the conversion, this one a much more difficult one, but the Stormers were 17-7 ahead after 28 minutes and full value for that lead.
Deon's Doublin' ????@Deonf has his second try of the day as @THESTORMERS extend their lead ??#HeinekenChampionsCup pic.twitter.com/Q66Cq74xmt
— Heineken Champions Cup (@ChampionsCup) April 1, 2023
If, however, you get the impression this game was one by the Stormers’ forwards or their attacking play think again. It was far from that.
The reality is that it was the Stormers’ storming, hassling defence that won them the game. That might sound odd when they conceded four tries, but they were impregnable when it mattered.
And the period it probably mattered the most was the minutes just before halftime and then into extra time of the first half due to the penalties awarded to Quins as the visitors hammered away at the Stormers line but the URC champions showed the character they are renowned for by resisting everything that the English team threw at them.
There were areas of the Stormers game that didn’t work as well as expected. For instance, Harlequins had the advantage in the set scrums, although it has to be said the stadium turf didn’t contribute to a good scrum battle, while the lineout was also creaky.
In the second half there were a few errors from fullback Damian Willemse that allowed the Quins to get territory, but it was the self-same Willemse who showed his incredible X-factor and talent by diving spectacularly over in the corner after Senatla had run onto a kick from Libbok and offloaded.
?? Documents
— Heineken Champions Cup (@ChampionsCup) April 1, 2023
+?? #HeinekenChampionsCup
+?? 22/23
+?? @THESTORMERS
+?? Outrageous Tries
Yet another addition to the folder! What a finish from Damian Willemse ?????? pic.twitter.com/IbIhGZ21F8
That made it 22-7 and it became 25-7 when Libbok kicked a long range penalty. Then came the Engelbrecht try that looked likely to be the last score of the game but it reckoned without the incredible attacking spirit of Harlequins, who even though they couldn’t win the match would have won back a lot of pride for themselves with those last three tries that, if nothing else, vindicated the pre-match predictions that this would be a contest well worth watching.
The Stormers will now wait until the result of the Exeter Chiefs/Montpellier game in England on Sunday before finding out who they play in the quarterfinal and where.
If Montpellier win, the game will be in Cape Town, otherwise the Stormers will be heading to Exeter’s home ground of Sandy Park.
SCORES
DHL Stormers 32Tries: Deon Fourie 2, Steven Kitshoff, Damian Willemse and Willie Engelbrecht. Conversions: Manie Libbok. 2 Penalty: Manie Libbok.
Harlequins 28 Tries: Alex Dombrandt 2, Andre Esterhuizen and Joe Marchant. Conversions: Marcus Smith 4.