They say you should always ensure when you make a playoff game you play it at home and the DHL Stormers will understand that after they fell agonisingly short of reaching the Invested Champions Cup quarterfinals as Toulon beat them 28-27 in a nail-biting round of 16 tie at the State Mayol on Saturday.
It’s always a tough call to say a team was robbed but there were so many instances where the referee Chrisophe Ridley got it wrong and denied the Stormers points in the final quarter hour, including what looked like a winning try after the hooter, that it is just impossible to avoid it.
To me it looked like Ntuthuko Mchunu touched the ball down on the line as he drove forward with eight minutes to go. The referee had called it no try on the field. Had he not, he would probably have awarded it on the television evidence. Immediately after that a penalty was awarded against Toulon as the Stormers drove towards the line. It was a cynical infringement and the commentators were in agreement that the Stormers would certainly have scored.
They asked why, while the player was yellow carded and a penalty awarded, the question of a penalty try being awarded wasn’t even looked at. If the game was in Cape Town, the reality is it may have been. But in a hostile, noisy French stadium, the 50/50 calls, even when they are really 60/40 as this one surely was, just sometimes go against you. And they went against the Stormers.
As did the last call, where it looked like Marcel Theunissen had barrelled over the line. But Ridley, probably influenced by a show of celebration by the out on their feet Toulon players, had ruled it held up on the field so he had to stick with that call when it was impossible to physically see the ball put down on the ground on the replay. But it looked like the try had been scored, there was just a Stormers jersey covering the ball and no evidence of any Toulon hands beneath him.
SHOULD HAVE LINED UP SACHA FOR THE DROP-GOAL
The Stormers should perhaps also kick themselves, for while they showed massive character in this match and were all over Toulon in the final minutes, where at one stage the desperate hosts were down to 13 men, they also made errors. They let Toulon punish them by creating width and that was how most of the Toulon tries were scored.
Then in that final prolonged attack, with the Stormers being patient in retaining possession by driving up the middle of the field towards the Toulon line, they may also have erred by not doing what seemed obvious at that point - set up Sacha Feinberg-Mngomezulu, who is an accomplished drop kicker, to win it through that route.
That the Stormers were pressing to win the game at that point was down to a brilliant run down the right touchline from Feinberg-Mngomezulu with just two minutes to go that set up reserve scrumhalf Imad Khan for the try that brought the Stormers back into range after they had been trailing 28-20.
Feinberg-Mngomezulu, like Khan, was part of the Stormers reserve bench on the day, as was JD Schickerling, Mchunu and Deon Fourie, and their coach John Dobson, who said on television afterwards that what should have been the winning try was actually scored but he could understand why the referee couldn’t do so according to the protocols, did that for a reason.
VISITORS SHOWED INCREDIBLE RESILIENCE
He wanted his team to bury Toulon with a fast finish, and they came so close to doing it, with what had for a long time been a 14-13 Toulon lead, also the halftime score, which was mainly down to the Stormers’ incredible resilience under pressure until that point, being wiped out when Evan Roos drove over just a matter of minutes after the bench had come onto the field.
At that point it looked like the Stormers had weathered the storm and would steam to victory, with Feinberg-Mngomezulu’s conversion pushing the Stormers to a 20-14 lead with 25 minutes of the game remaining.
But Toulon got the territorial platform they needed to put Mathis Ferte in for the try four minutes later that regained the Toulon one point lead with the Tomas Albornoz conversion, and then came another of those tries fashioned by a long pass and the Stormers, who were excellent with their linespeed all game but maybe a bit narrow, conceded another try similar to the two they’d given away in the first half.
Suddenly it was 28-20 to Toulon and there was daylight between the teams for the first time in the game. But full marks to the Stormers, who showed the kind of passion that has been too frequently missing from South African teams in the Champions Cup, for sticking to their plan and not giving up.
Had Mchunu been awarded the try when he should have, and the Stormers had eight minutes to hammer away at that eight point lead, instead of the two they ended up with when Khan finally crossed the line, it is probable the Stormers would have won. For Dobson was right in looking for a fast finish - Toulon looked out on their feet.
TOULON SHOULD HAVE LED BY MORE EARLIER
The home team does deserve credit for the way they fought, and instead of playing like a team that was more focused on survival in the promotion-relegation battle they face in the Top 14, they looked like a team desperate to save their season by progressing far in the Champions Cup.
They’ve made the quarterfinal round, and will play one of the Bulls or Glasgow next week, but will have been a mighty relieved team at the final whistle. They will have reckoned they should have been a lot further than one point ahead at the end of a first half they dominated in terms of territory and possession.
They scored their first try in the ninth minute, and yes it was the product of a skip pass, with Scottish scrumhalf taking an inside ball from the wing as Toulon created space out wide. Toulon were all over the Stormers at that point, but in some ways it was a game similar to the Vodacom URC clash with the Bulls in Pretoria a few weeks ago, with the Stormers becoming more confident as the game progressed.
They were starved of possession though and when Adre Smith crossed for the try that put the Stormers 10-7 after some good close to the gainline running and passing from fellow forwards Paul de Villiers and Neethling Fouche it felt like it was the first time the Stormers had been in the Toulon 22. Jurie Matthee had earlier kicked a penalty to narrow the gap.
Then came another of those wide tries, this time to wing Gael Dream, and it was Toulon ahead 14-10 only for Matthee to bring it back to a one point gap with a well taken long range penalty. Although trailing, the Stormers would have been the happier team at halftime. Their plan was working. And it would have come off had it not been for the run of calls that went against them int the last quarter of an absorbing game that was an excellent advert for the Champions Cup.
SCORES
Toulon 28 - Tries: Ben White, Gael Drean, Mathis Ferte and Secu Tuicuvu; Conversions: Tomas Albornoz 3 and Marius Domon.
DHL Stormers 27 - Tries: Adre Smith, Evan Roos and Imad Khan; Conversions: Jurie Matthee and Sacha Feinberg-Mngomezulu 2; Penalties: Jurie Matthee.