The chances of the DHL Stormers joining the team that wins Saturday’s Loftus battle as South African participants in the Vodacom United Rugby Championship semifinals will depend almost entirely on their ability to deal with the pressure of their first playoff game in several years.
Put in another way, it will depend on them living up to the pledge from coach John Dobson that they will keep everything exactly the same in the build-up to the quarterfinal against Edinburgh and in the game itself as every other week in the competition. Meaning that there shouldn’t be any deviation from the attack minded joie de vivre that has accompanied the Stormers through the rest of the season and has driven them to where they are now.
Should they get that right, they should get through an obstacle that is far more difficult for them than the respective log positions, two against seven, would suggest. Dobson is right in recalling that Edinburgh weren’t always languishing near the bottom of the top eight on the overall log, there was a time they were in the top two.
When the dip came for them, it was when they were without their 12 Scottish internationals. They have those players back now. They were unlucky to lose to Ulster a few weeks ago, otherwise they might have finished in the top four. It was a league season of fine margins. We might see that fine margin again at DHL Stadium in Cape Town on Saturday evening, and Edinburgh do have more recent experience of being part of big playoff games.
AM COULD BE THE KEY MAN AT LOFTUS
Speaking of which, the earlier game in Pretoria could be decided by a fine margin too, but the Cell C Sharks would do well to remember the fine margin they lost to the Vodacom Bulls by in the 2020 Currie Cup final at the same Loftus venue and resolve to do the opposite of what the Stormers should do.
Well, maybe they shouldn’t completely throw out what they’ve been doing so far, meaning relying heavily on their set-piece and their forwards. That would be crazy at this point of the competition. But they do have brilliant X-factor players at the back that don’t get used enough, and just a bit more ambition and adventure could be the difference between a narrow defeat and a narrow win.
Lukhanyo Am, understandably a little rusty in the final league game against Ulster when he’d just returned from his stint in Japan, may be the key for the Sharks in that regard.
It was his little moment of genius in the previous game between these teams that ensured what was shaping as a good fightback from a Bulls team reduced to 14 men by Morne Steyn’s red card was snuffed out on the stroke of halftime. And from memory, he was also the man of the match when the Sharks beat the Bulls in Durban in December.
NEED TO START WELL
Bulls director of rugby Jake White is right when he says altitude matters. The Bulls did come back very strongly in the dying stages of the game in February. But it might matter less at this time of the year than it does in the summer months, and the Sharks can help themselves blunt the threat by getting into the game early for a change and taking some kind of lead.
That isn’t something they’ve managed to do much this season, they tend to be a second half team. That can’t happen in Pretoria and they will know it.
The Bulls and the Stormers will start as favourites in the two South African games, as of course will Leinster as they look to pick up the pieces of the disappointment of their Champions Cup final defeat to La Rochelle last week by producing a commanding home quarterfinal performance against Glasgow Warriors.
The Ulster game against Munster at the Kingspan Stadium on Friday night is probably the one match in the quarterfinal round where there is no clear favourite. Ulster should have the edge at home, but it was Munster who won the last time they traveled to Belfast.
Weekend Vodacom United Rugby Championship quarterfinals
Ulster v Munster (Belfast, Friday 20.35)
The Munster team that lost to the Leinster second string side at Aviva Stadium two weeks ago has been boosted by the return of Springbok centre Damian de Allende. He will be as significant a presence for Munster as his Springbok and former Stormers teammate Duane Vermeulen will be for Ulster.
This is a game made bigger for Munster by the fact that it will be the last time their South African coach Johann van Graan and his Australian assistant Stephen Larkham will be in charge if they lose. Munster, starved of trophies for so long, will have a high level of motivation. But so do Ulster, who had the exact experience as their opponents in the Champions Cup, meaning suffering heartbreaking losses to Toulouse, only in different rounds of that competition.
Prediction:Ulster’s home ground advantage to edge it by 5
Vodacom Bulls v Cell C Sharks (Pretoria, Saturday 13.45)
Neither team has been announced yet, and the Sharks appear to have delayed their announcement so that the Bulls can get in first, but there shouldn’t be any surprises. Both teams, like all the South African sides, have won more than they have lost in the past few months, so neither should really lack any confidence.
The Sharks did have that hiccup in Belfast in the last round of the URC league season but then no-one really expected them to win at a venue that isn’t kind to visiting teams. Loftus hasn’t been kind to them in recent years, but they did break through the barrier on their last visit in February, and although there was a background story to that game around Morne Steyn’s red card, that result should inspire some confidence.
The Bulls haven’t lost since they went down to the Stormers on the 9th of April and definitely have a more complete game than the Sharks. That is why the Sharks need to inject a few unexpected different dynamics and attacking innovations into their approach. They do have the players at the back to do that. It is just a question of bringing them into the game. How Curwin Bosch goes in that regard is key. Assuming of course he is playing, as Boeta Chamberlain delivered a solid cameo as a replacement against Ulster.
Prediction:Bulls to win by 8
Leinster v Glasgow Warriors (Dublin, Saturday 16.15)
The big question hovering over Leinster is how they will react to last week’s disappointment. Losing a huge final, which last week’s clash with La Rochelle in Marseille was, is a bitter pill to swallow and deal with, particularly when that defeat happens off the last move of the game. So will Munster be stung into action, or will they struggle to refocus after being so mentally down this week?
The answer was partly provided by their scrum coach Robin McBryde, who says that his team are determined to provide “the fruits of their labour” by winning the trophy. We say only partly, because the game itself will give us the real answer, but it does make sense: Liverpools Champion League defeat last weekend in the round ball game would have been easier for them to bear had they won the Premier League. Ditto for Leinster. And it is why Leinster should advance without raising too much of a sweat.
Prediction:Leinster by 20
DHL Stormers v Edinburgh (Cape Town, Saturday 19.00)
The Stormers should have taken note of how two of the team’s former stalwarts, Dillyn Leyds and Raymond Rhule, shone for the winners in last week’s Champions Cup final. It was the X-factor that they brought that made the initial difference and got them into the game after Leinster had enjoyed the early momentum in Marseille.
The Stormers will have to do the same against an Edinburgh team that also likes to play attacking rugby and which is working towards becoming what the Stormers have become - a team renowned for offloading and X-factor strike running. But in this game, mindful of the threats they face, they are likely to be more tactical, like they were in the wet when they beat the Sharks in Durban in March.
The Stormers have righty been focusing a lot on their lineout this week as it has been a problem area for them. In playoff games, the set-piece battle does tend to become even more crucial, and coach John Dobson may recall that it was the lineout work that won Western Province a Currie Cup title in Durban in 2012 and lost them a final in Cape Town when he was coach six years later, and the scrum that did it for his team in Durban a year before that.
But these days the Stormers don’t rely on set-piece dominance as an end in itself, they look to use at as a platform for the offload rugby version of the northern lights spectacle they are capable of at the back.
Prediction:Stormers to win by 8