CHAMPIONS CUP WRAP: Stormers robbed and Bulls get so near

The Saracens outgoing director of rugby Mark McCall, who will hand the reins over to Brendan Venter next year, spoke after his final Investec Champions Cup game of the magic of the elite European competition. South Africans have struggled to believe, but at the weekend they got a glimpse of what he is talking about.

Once again, this country won’t be going deep into the “magic competition” that McCall referred to after his team lost to Johann van Graan’s Bath, but both the Vodacom Bulls and the DHL Stormers came so close in two pulsating, emotional games which were spiky and contested with huge passion.

The local sides are out, and there are reasons why that may even be good for them, but no-one can accuse them this time of not giving a damn. Both teams went all out and were gutted in defeat.

REFEREE RIDLEY GOT SO MUCH WRONG

The Stormers, to put it quite simply, were robbed by spineless and inept refereeing by the normally competent Chrisophe Ridley.

Spineless because if he’d been in Cape Town and not in the furnace that was the Stade Mayol in Toulon, where the passionate home fans were even more intense than usual as they bayed their team on for victory after a sequence of defeats in the Top 14, he might have seen the obvious when called on to adjudicate what should have been the Stormers’ match winning try.

Not only did it look like the Stormers scored (he ruled it on-field ‘no try’ thereby tying his hands), it was also clear that the man who’d gone over the line, lock Adre Smith, had been played in an offside position by a player who was also off his feet.

So if not a try it should have been a penalty try as was the case earlier when Ridley penalised a Toulon’s defence of a powerful Stormers maul and yellow carded a Toulon player for an infringement that clearly prevented a certain Stormers. But he did not even consider a penalty try.

The Smith incident was after the hooter, off the last move of the game, and Ridley had plenty of time to look at it and discuss it with his TMO. It is true that you couldn’t actually see the ball being grounded on the grass behind the tryline on the television replays, but that was only because the angle was from above and we could only see Smith covering the ball.

Never stopped fighting and finished on the front foot. Heartbreaking ending for us. #RCTvSTO #inittogether pic.twitter.com/ByMvIng4YQ
— DHL Stormers (@THESTORMERS) April 4, 2026

What was also patently obvious, and Stormers director of rugby John Dobson wasn’t shy to say so afterwards, was that the Stormers player was played by Toulon flank Charles Ollivan on the ground in the field of play.

Dobson told the television post-match interviewers that “It was a try but I can understand why the referee didn’t award it”, referring to the fact he’d called against it with the on-field call, but he adjusted that when he spoke to the media post-match by saying it was a try multiplied by two. Meaning that apart from the grounding there was also the foul play by Ollivan.

In addition to the above-mentioned incidents, it also looked like Ntuthuko Mchunu, the Stormers loosehead prop, had touched the ball on the line in another incident that saw lengthy consultation with the TMO. Again, Ridley had ruled it as no try on the field.

That was with eight minutes to go and the Stormers were trailing by eight. Had it been awarded, or the penalty try given a minute later, the Stormers would have had several minutes to hammer away at a one point lead with Toulon looking out on their feet and with a player in the bin.

Instead the try that took them to within one came with just over two minutes to go. Still, it was enough time, and they should have scored and notched a notable win against a European heavyweight on their home ground were it not for the lamentable officiating.

WHY HEROIC DEFEAT MIGHT HAVE BEEN GOOD FOR DOBSON

The heroic defeat might though have been preferable to the Stormers than a win given that the latter outcome would have set them up with a tough semifinal against Glasgow this week, which would have meant no break before they go into a sequence of crucial home games against Connacht and Glasgow in the Vodacom URC.

The Stormers need to win both to maintain their challenge for a top of the log finish, and then they go to Ulster and Cardiff for their final games.

In a weird way, Dobson might have been more gutted than he was had his fellow SA team, the Bulls, done the business in the later game in Glasgow. Had the Bulls won that match and the Stormers won there’s, the quarterfinal would have been on Saturday in Cape Town - an easier scenario for the Stormers to fit into their URC planning and obviously a north versus south money-spinner.

BULLS JUST DIDN’T CONVERT PERIODS OF DOMINANCE

It wouldn’t have been a good result for the Bulls as they would have had to come back to SA before heading back to the northern hemisphere to play two URC games in Wales, but by the time the Scotstoun game kicked off a Cape Town quarterfinal wasn’t what they were playing for. They’d have headed to Toulon this week, and it very nearly came to that as for much of the game the Bulls gave more than they received against a Glasgow team considered to have been the best in the European competition thus far.

What let the Bulls down was their finishing and then the soft moments that let Glasgow score some of their four tries. Glasgow have real aspirations for European glory this year and they would have been mightily relieved to escape with the win against a Bulls team that seemed to camp for interminable periods in the Glasgow 22 without being able to convert.

FULL TIME.

Tough fight in Scotland as our Champions Cup journey comes to an end 🐂

Thank you for your support 💙@Vodacom | @ChampionsCup pic.twitter.com/631VyVoSrg
— Official Blue Bulls (@BlueBullsRugby) April 4, 2026

Glasgow now play Toulon in their quarterfinal and should start as strong favourites on their home field, but the performances of the weekend came from two previous winners of the Champions Cup - multiple champions Toulouse and current title holders Bordeaux Begles, with the former routing the Bristol Bears while Bordeaux put more than 60 past the once mighty Leicester Tigers.

SHARKS GOT WHAT THEY WANTED

The other South African team in action at the weekend was the Hollywoodbets Sharks, who went to Galway to play the EPCR Challenge Cup round of 16 tie against Connacht. You could argue that the Durbanites got what they were looking for - continuing in the European secondary competition would have compromised their fight for a top eight finish in the URC, which is their most obvious pathway to qualifying for next year's Champions Cup.

So they would have hoped for a creditable performance in defeat, and with a weakened team they did okay in the first half, with four penalties from flyhalf Jean Smith giving them a 12-7 halftime lead. They fell away after that to lose 29-12 but will feel, and rightly so, that they have bigger fish to fry as they head the week after next into a decisive final four game sequence in the URC.