The Vodacom Bulls emerged from the Vodacom URC quarterfinal weekend as South Africa’s best hope of making it to the final but the DHL Stormers, reeling from the blow of two significant injuries, will not be travelling to Dublin for their semi-final completely without hope.
The Bulls’ better chance of making the decider is not rooted in them being a better team than the Stormers but rather the luck of the draw. Although their opponents at Scottish Gas Murrayfield on Saturday, Glasgow Warriors, finished first on the final URC log, which is why they are the team in the Bulls’ path (it’s first versus fourth), it is the Glaswegians that look the more vulnerable right now of the two overseas teams that will host the semi-finals.
Then there is the not insignificant fact that the game will be played at Murrayfield. The Bulls weren’t far away from Glasgow when they played them away in the round of 16 of the Investec Champions Cup at the beginning of April. Glasgow won by just four points and the Bulls had their chances, plus the game was at The Scotstoun, where the 4G surface gives the hosts a telling advantage because of their greater familiarity with it.
Eight became four.
— Vodacom United Rugby Championship (URC) (@URCOfficial_RSA) May 30, 2026
Now the heat is rising. 🔥
Semi-Final rugby awaits. 👀
📺 Watch all the action LIVE on SuperSport🍿@Vodacom #URC pic.twitter.com/I571H7uPRI
The semi-final and for that matter the venue of the final have been set for Murrayfield because of the preparations for the Commonwealth Games, and as you can read elsewhere on supersport.com, Bulls coach Johan Ackermann has already acknowledged that the switch gives his team a leg up.
GLASGOW WERE BADLY EXPOSED IN SA
Glasgow were badly exposed by both the Stormers and the Fidelity SecureDrive Lions when they were in South Africa just over a month ago so the Bulls have a real opportunity of making a third successive final and their fourth overall. The only time they haven’t been in the decider was in 2023, when they lost to the Stormers in the Cape Town quarterfinal.
With the Stormers having made the finals in 2022 and 2023 and won the competition in the inaugural year, if there were two overseas wins in the semi-finals it would be the first tie there is no South African team in the final. The Bulls showed with their confident thumping of Munster that they are in red hot form and head to Glasgow with close to an even chance of making it through.
It is harder to say that about the Stormers’ trip to London just because Leinster gave their answer to the question about how they’d respond to their fourth defeat in a Champions Cup final in the space of five years with their one-sided win over the Lions. Had the Lions upset the champions it would have meant a derby semi-final against the Stormers in Cape Town but the Stormers weren’t thinking of that as being much of a possibility after their own comprehensive win over Cardiff and they were right.
LEINSTER GAVE POSITIVE ANSWER TO THE QUESTIONS
It was a long way from being the best Lions performance but Leinster were demonstrably better than them and looked poised and confident. It is true that the Bulls thumped Leinster unexpectedly in the 2022 semi-final at the RDS Arena, but there was a different context to that game - Leinster had just lost a close Champions Cup final against La Rochelle six days earlier.
If Leinster were going to be vulnerable it was going to be in the quarterfinal, just seven days after their most recent European final loss in Bilbao, but there was never any doubt they would handle the Lions challenge with a degree of comfort once they’d got off to a quick start with two early tries. You don’t play catch-up at the AVIVA Stadium against Leinster.
The Stormers would already have been underdogs even if they’d gone to Dublin this week with a full strength squad, but they’ve been hurt by injuries, with their definitely being two key players missing out on the trip and potentially three.
SACHA UNLIKELY TO BE READY FOR ALL BLACK SERIES
Springbok flyhalf Sacha Feinberg-Mngomezulu left the scene of the Stormers’ quarterfinal win on crutches and what was suspected has apparently been confirmed by scans - his ankle injury will keep him out for at least three months, which means he will miss the Sprignboks’ Nations Cup games plus the warmup game against Argentina and will be in a race against time to be part of the Bok challenge in the Greatest Rivalry Series against the All Blacks.
Indeed, it seems highly unlikely Feinberg-Mngomezulu will face the All Blacks as that series starts on 22 August, which is over a week less than three months away. Losing an international pivot for a semi-final, particularly as the Stormers’ international scrumhalf Cobus Reinach is also out injured, is obviously far from ideal for the Stormers.
And Stormers coach John Dobson seemed almost more concerned after the Cardiff game about the absence of wing Seabelo Senatla, who was in excellent form on his return from injury and showed the Stormers the dynamic they had been missing out wide during his absence. Senatla was concussed in the second half and will join Feinberg-Mngomezulu in being a definite absentee in Dublin.
It looks like experienced centre Dan du Plessis, who played most of the second half through an injury (the six/two bench split made it impossible for him to go off), might also miss out on the Dublin trip.
STORMERS HAVE NOTHING TO LOSE
However, on the flip side for the Stormers, considering they were always going to be underdogs against Leinster on their home turf, as indeed would any team in the competition be, they can consider themselves to be going to Dublin with nothing to lose. Dobson is also quite right in having full confidence in Feinberg-Mngomezulu’s replacement, Jurie Matthee, who delivered a calm and composed performance when he came on as a substitute against Cardiff.
They also have enough utility value at the back to be able to cover the absence of Du Plessis, so it is understandable why Dobson felt that the Senatla injury might well be the most damaging for his team. Senatla’s excellence in the aerial contest was going to be a big part of the Stormers’ game at the AVIVA.
Henco van Wyk had another one in him. 🔥
— Vodacom United Rugby Championship (URC) (@URCOfficial_RSA) May 30, 2026
Giving the @LionsRugbyCo something to take from it. 👏
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And what would it say for the Stormers’ depth and what would it do for the confidence of the replacement players if the replacement players were part of an unexpected winning effort and the Boks were absent? Imad Khan, who is just 22, is certainly developing fast as a scrumhalf at this level, and Matthee has consistently shown why the Stormers have contracted him until 2029.
The Stormers also have something that the Lions don’t have which will pose different questions to Leinster - a physically imposing forward pack that was again in juggernaut form in the semi-final. Where the Stormers are going to have to improve is their defence and they are also going to have to ready themselves for Jacques Nienaber’s rush defence, which was very good against the Lions.
The four quarterfinals were all comfortably won by the home teams and that says two things - home ground advantage is critical in the playoffs, and there is also a chasm between the top four and the bottom four in the final URC top eight.
The closest game was the first one of the weekend in Glasgow, and the Warriors were impressive. But they were playing on 4G, which they won’t be against the Bulls…
Weekend Vodacom URC quarterfinal results
Glasgow Warriors 33 Connacht 21
Vodacom Bulls 45 Munster 14
DHL Stormers 44 Cardiff 21
Leinster 59 Fidelity SecureDrive Lions 10
Vodacom URC semi-finals (Saturday, 6 June)
Glasgow Warriors v Vodacom Bulls (Scottish Gas Murrayfield, Edinburgh, 15.30 SA time)
Leinster v DHL Stormers (AVIVA Stadium, Dublin, 18.30 SA time)