The DHL Stormers forgot about the control that brought them victory the previous week and the reintroduction of the over-emphasis on flash that cost them this time last year contributed in no small measure to a comprehensive 38-7 defeat to Edinburgh at The Hive on Saturday.
Let it be said too though that it was a night where most of the 50/50 calls went against the Stormers, and there was also a pretty obvious error from referee Ben Whitehouse that effectively sparked the big swing in momentum that put Edinburgh on the road to the big win in a game that was close until then.
End of our tour in Edinburgh. #EDIvSTO #iamastormer @Vodacom #URC #dhldelivers pic.twitter.com/3Ut3DwHRkf
— DHL Stormers (@THESTORMERS) October 12, 2024
The error being referred to came in the 58th minute. The Stormers were on the attack and trailing by seven after a while earlier they had had a try disallowed by one of those aforementioned 50/50 calls which could have seen the Stormers go level.
The Stormers had the ball coming back to them from a ruck when an Edinburgh hand snuck illegally into the fray and secured the turnover.
It was so inevitable that the penalty would go their way, and in a very kickable position if they elected to go that way, that the Stormers would have been forgiven if they were already thinking about what they would do with the penalty.
Instead though, quite inexplicably, the referee kept his hand down. Edinburgh counter-attacked off the turnover and transferred the pressure into the Stormers 22. The ball was spun wide and wing Darcy Graham went over.
CAPE TEAM CONSPIRED AGAINST THEMSELVES
The TMO checked if there was separation between the hand and the ball because it looked suspiciously like the ball was dropped on the line.
To be fair, it was a 50/50 call, but it did keep with the trend of the 50/50 calls going against the Stormers.
Why are we making such a big deal of one score when it was such a one-sided game?
Well, because it only became one-sided once Edinburgh went more than a score ahead, which they shouldn’t have done, and the Stormers appeared to completely lose the plot after that.
That doesn’t mean the Stormers were beyond criticism, and when you conspire against yourselves like the Stormers did in this game, and are as poor at protecting your possession as the Stormers were in this game, then you deserve to lose.
Certainly from a Stormers viewpoint this defeat should be as alarming to them as last week’s shut-out of Zebre was encouraging.
Last week indicated that they’d learned from last year’s mistakes and had put away their tendency to overdo the offload game and their tendency, to use a cricketing analogy, of trying to hit their sixes before playing themselves in.
The Stormers didn’t do that in this game, and while the first Edinburgh try that put the hosts into a 7-0 lead was the product of unrelenting pressure from a home team that was quick out of the blocks and enjoyed most of the momentum in the first quarter, the try that put Edinburgh more than a score ahead was not.
The Ben Muncaster try in the 22nd minute was a gift from a Stormers team that went for one turnover too many rather than the control they’d exhibited in Parma.
GIFT TRY CONDEMNED THEM TO PLAYING CATCH-UP
That was the try that condemned the Stormers to playing catch-up, and maybe that contributed to the Stormers’ appearance of trying to rush things.
In so doing they returned to old bad habits which should rightly have frustrated their supporters.
The best periods in the game from the Stormers were the second part of the first half, where they did keep the ball in the forwards more and for a while it looked like momentum had swung their way.
Damian Willemse had a try disallowed but eventually the unrelenting pressure from the Stormers paid off when they put in Ruhan Nel for a try in the 31st minute that with Willemse’s conversion made it 14-7.
💪 Forward power and a ruthless finish. #EDIvSTO #iamastormer @Vodacom #URC #dhldelivers pic.twitter.com/AXReQqqnYv
— DHL Stormers (@THESTORMERS) October 12, 2024
The Stormers came close to scoring again before the break, and again a few times after it.
Their second disallowed try looked like the result of a good rip from JD Schickerling initially but the TMO assessment introduced enough doubt for the decision to be overturned and the try disallowed.
Instead it was an Edinburgh penalty. Maybe it was the right call, but it was marginal, another 50/50, and on another day it might have been allowed.
Once the Stormers went behind 21-7 to the Graham try they just weren’t at the races and it became a bit of a procession in favour of Edinburgh as first Grant Gilchrist crossed for a try to make up for the one Edinburgh try that was disallowed earlier in the game (the lock was the man who dotted down then) and then Ross Thompson added a penalty.
Edinburgh were all over the dejected Stormers by then and they scored another for good measure to make it one of the biggest Stormers margins of defeat in the URC.
Edinburgh recover from last week's loss in Johannesburg to beat the DHL Stormers 🟠👇#VURC pic.twitter.com/FPG25O092M
— SuperSport Rugby (@SSRugby) October 12, 2024
Scores
Edinburgh 38 - Tries: Patrick Harrison, Ben Muncaster 2, Darcy Graham and Grant Gilchrist; Conversions: Ross Thompson 5; Penalty: Ross Thompson.
DHL Stormers 7