A try by former Sharks flanker Henco Venter off a driving maul five minutes from time killed off the DHL Stormers’ 2023/24 Vodacom United Rugby Championship challenge as Glasgow Warriors secured a 27-10 win in their quarterfinal at the Scotstoun on Saturday night.
Don’t be fooled by that winning margin, the Stormers conceded a try when desperately trying to keep the ball alive behind the tryline as they vainly attempted to go the length of the field for a score.
Instead Jean-Luc du Plessis’s little attempted kick pass bounced off a Glasgow player and Ross Thomson dotted down to make it two tries in the space of a few minutes.
Glasgow knock the DHL Stormers out the #VURC to set up a date with Munster in the semi-finals 💥 pic.twitter.com/920qcsRAhD
— SuperSport Rugby (@SSRugby) June 8, 2024
Before that though the Stormers were well in it and had scored two tries to one, but let it be said this game was a microcosm of the Stormers’ season, and it can be summed up in one word - inconsistency.
There were times in the game when the Stormers did good things, but they conspired against themselves too, and they would have been leading with the last minutes coming up had Manie Libbok had his place kicking boots on.
Libbok missed four kicks from the tee to make it 10 points missed from that avenue.
There were other chances that they missed in general play too, not to mention the sloppiness that allowed the hosts to strike back with a try of their own straight after Ben Loader had profited from a good carry from Marcel Theunissen and then a surge through the gap off a short pass from Sacha Feinberg-Mngomezulu by going over in the left corner.
😮💨 Ben Loader sneaks over in the corner for DHL @TheStormers 💪
— Vodacom United Rugby Championship (URC) (@URCOfficial_RSA) June 8, 2024
Still all to play for against Glasgow Warriors 🤩@Vodacom #URC #GLAvSTO pic.twitter.com/3sPFwcte8q
MOERAT CARDED
The try came in the 60th minute when the Warriors were leading 6-0 so, with Libbok missing the conversion, it was a one point game, with the Stormers down 6-5.
It was game on, with skipper Salmaan Moerat about to come back after being yellow carded for one of those unfortunate rugby collisions.
From the restart though the Stormers dropped the ball and then came a flurry of defensive errors as the Warriors ran in a try to wing Sebastian Cancillieri.
It's an instant response from @GlasgowWarriors 🤯
— Vodacom United Rugby Championship (URC) (@URCOfficial_RSA) June 8, 2024
Sebastian Cancelliere dances across the whitewash for the score 🕺@vodacom #URC #GLAvSTO pic.twitter.com/d8RXDgBFVh
For the first time, there was more than a score between the teams, but the Stormers struck back with an excellent try to reserve scrumhalf Paul de Wet, who sniped over from close range.
It was an easily kickable position but again Libbok missed, leaving a three point deficit when there should have been just one.
On a night where the referee made some strange decisions when it came to scrum penalties, Glasgow profited from one of those and got the field position that allowed them to dominate the final 10 minutes of the game.
Given that the Stormers had traveled so far to get there just days before the game, they were always going to have dead legs late on, but they could have wrapped up this game a lot earlier.
A GAME OF FINE MARGINS
It was weird that Feinberg-Mngomezulu was taken off just after his assist for the first try for the situation was crying out for him to take over the place-kicking.
The youngster is far more reliable from the tee, and a future where he plays centre and is the first choice kicker isn’t that far fetched.
The Stormers dominated the third quarter as they made use of the strong wind they played into in the first half.
The Stormers were excited when they flew out for this game at the prospect of it being a dry weather summer game, but that wasn’t quite the case - rain fell before kickoff to make the surface wet and slippery and at times during the first half, even though the sun did shine through occasionally, it fell again.
That made the field slippery and rendered handling difficult, but worse than that was the wind.
The hosts started with a strong wind at their back, and they would have felt they might be a bit short when they went to halftime 6-0 ahead given that the Stormers would have that wind at their back in the second half.
It could easily have been 6-all, with Libbok slicing his first attempt in the 18th minute that would have given the Stormers a 3-0 lead after a furious start in which there was a lot of ball in play.
It was very much what we expected beforehand, the Stormers’ fast advancing defensive line against the Glasgow attacking game.
The Stormers were very effective in shutting down their opponents, but in a game of fine margins, it was the hosts that got the rub of the green in that first half, although they did also blow an excellent try scoring chance when George Horn, man of the match for his kicking, which was so much better than Libbok’s knocked on with the line at his mercy.
On another day the referee would have shown Glasgow wing Kyle Steyn a red card for the swinging arm that collided with Warrick Gelant’s head as the Stormers fullback went up for a high ball.
Libbok missed his first kick in the 17th minute for what would have been a 3-0 lead, Glasgow immediately played themselves into the Stormers’ half and kicked a penalty of their own, so instead it was 3-0 to Glasgow.
It was that kind of game, a game of fine margins, much finer than the scoreline would suggest, but with the visitors definitely conspiring against themselves and being punished for their inconsistency.
SCORES
Glasgow Warriors 27 - Tries: Sebastian Cancielleri, Henco Venter and Ross Thomson; Conversions: George Horn 3; Penalties: George Horn 2. DHL
Stormers 10 - Tries: Ben Loader and Paul de Wet.