It was hard not to give some thought what Jake White might have been thinking, if he was indeed watching and not travelling, at the time that it became clear that the Glasgow Warriors were going to get across the line with full points in their game against the DHL Stormers.
There is an intense rivalry between the Vodacom Bulls director of rugby and the Stormers coach John Dobson, as well as between the two teams. The tribal rivalry that drives South African derbies is yet to come into focus in this year’s edition of the Vodacom United Rugby Championship, but it will in December through to March.
At the top of the leaderboard, it’s Leinster - the only unbeaten team!🔥
— Vodacom United Rugby Championship (URC) (@URCOfficial_RSA) October 27, 2024
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But this might have been one occasion when White might not have liked to see the Stormers lose. Glasgow, who beat the Bulls in last year’s final, are a bigger threat to the Bulls’ quest for a top two spot than the Stormers are.
And thanks to the two points picked up by scoring a brilliant try off the last move of the game that secured a four try as well as a losing bonus, plus the full house banked at the Danie Craven Stadium, that is precisely where Franco Smith’s team are right now. In the top two.
Of course, as has been mentioned before, there is some distortion to the log from a South African viewpoint. The decision to postpone the opening round of the URC for local teams, a round which was going to feature derby games, means the SA sides have played one game less than the overseas teams.
So the four points separating second placed Glasgow from the third placed Bulls, which is the equivalent of one win, could be seen as negligible. But given that the Bulls will be playing the Warriors at the Scotstoun in league play this year (25 April), and not in Pretoria, the fact that Glasgow were able to leave this country with seven points, whereas last year they fell well short on their tour, should hurt the Bulls’ ambitions as much as it did the Stormers.
LEINSTER LOOK ALMOST CERTAIN OF TOP TWO
That is particularly so given that Leinster, who claimed their first South African scalp when they inflicted a first defeat on the Emirates Lions at the weekend, already look almost untouchable in their quest to finish top of the log.
The Lions did at least prevent Leinster from banking another try scoring bonus point, they first that they’ve effectively dropped out of a possible 30 from their six games, but the Irish side lead Glasgow by six points, and the Bulls by 10.
It’s hard to see Leinster dropping off pole position, let alone out of the top two, which is the finish needed to ensure home ground advantage in the playoffs through to at least the semifinal stage. Leinster do have to come to Pretoria this year for their league game, which is set for 22 March, and the proximity to the 2025 Six Nations means they will probably once again be at least relatively under-strength.
But with the Bulls, like all SA teams, set for a really tough derby stage this season, Leinster and Glasgow might have done enough by then to ensure their top two spots.
STORMERS BEATEN AT THEIR OWN GAME
Had Glasgow left SA with two defeats, it would have been a different scenario, but full marks to Smith and his team, who have grown immeasurably since the day in 2022 that the Stormers inflicted a big defeat on them at the DHL Stadium that effectively inspired the change of coach that brought Smith in on a ticket to get Glasgow to play more like the Stormers.
They’ve done that and then some, with the inaugural URC champions effectively being beaten at their own game in a sweltering early afternoon game at Stellenbosch that has left the Stormers in a hole.
Yes, it is very early in the season, and we’ve seen the Stormers in this position before. They will take some consolation from the fact that while they languish in 13th, the team that replaced them as champions in 2023, Munster, is just one position and two points ahead of them. And the Stormers have a game in hand.
But it is the upper reaches of the log, with Glasgow and Leinster flying like they are, that are starting to look very distant for the Stormers, particularly as their next game is against what should be a fully loaded and rampant Sharks team in Durban.
That 30 November game has become a massive one for the Stormers, and their coach John Dobson admitted as much at the post match press conference in Stellenbosch. The one bit of hope the Stormers may be able to cling to is that the game takes place just a week after the Springboks play Wales in Cardiff, and there are far more Sharks players in the Bok team than the Stormers have.
The Stormers’ representation was further whittled down when Damian Willemse limped off with a groin injury in Stellenbosch. It was an injury that undeniably hurt the Stormers, who had made a lot of their plans for the game around Willemse. And his departure followed the earlier injury to another Stormers Bok, Ben-Jason Dixon.
With returning Bok Manie Libbok having one of those days where he misfired, not from the kicking tee this time but in general play, the Stormers certainly weren’t helped by the injuries during the game that saw them have to empty their bench before they were intending to do so. And which left them with 14 men once skipper Dan du Plessis was forced off with a rib injury late in the game.
INJURIES ARE MITIGATION BUT SOMETHING SEEMS OFF
The Stormers were chasing the game then so had no chance of winning once they were down to 14, and further mitigation for the Stormers’ in defeat was provided by the injured players sitting in front of the press box.
Get Deon Fourie, Evan Roos, Salmaan Moerat, Steven Kitshoff, Ali Vermaak, Sacha Feinberg-Mngomezulu, Ben Loader and others fit again and the Stormers will look a very different team.
But still, it is hard to escape the feeling that there is something a bit off with the Stormers, and maybe Dobson fingered it afterwards when he said he was disappointed with his team’s work rate off the ball.
Perhaps there isn’t quite the desperation there that drove the Stormers when they were rated as a “little team”, which were Dobson’s words at the time, and needed to punch above their weight.
Now, after making the final the first two years, and winning the first one, there is a level of expectation that heaps pressure onto the team as it heads into a tough December that, apart from the two Investec Champions Cup games, also includes two derbies against the Sharks and one against the Lions.
The Stormers have been good at derbies in the past, and they will need to be again or they might be struggling for a top eight finish and Champions Cup qualification for next season.
BULLS WEREN’T LUCKY
Struggle is what the Bulls did against Benetton, but it needs to be seen in context - there was a wave of illness that went through the camp the night before their game in Treviso, and it meant that, among other changes, reserve scrumhalf Keagan Johannes had to play flyhalf instead of Boeta Chamberlain.
In a wet weather game, where kicking the ball into the corners was premium, that was a big shift, but full marks to the Bulls for rising above their own error-rate, and in particular a lamentable performance in the lineouts, to win it at the death with a last gasp touchline conversion from David Kriel.
There are some who felt the win was a lucky one for the Bulls, but when you score two tries to nil you are not lucky. The Bulls in fact should have won by more had they just made more clinical use of their possession.
And anyway, the Bulls were unlucky when they were robbed by refereeing error against the Scarlets the previous week.
Unlike their rivals from the Cape, the Bulls go into the month long international break in a good space, one that might have been better had Glasgow not jumped the hurdles put in front of them on their tour.
SHARKS AT FULL STRENGTH CAN WIN BOTH TROPHIES
The Lions after just one defeat in five starts, and to a top team at that, are also in a good space, while the Sharks, who you suspect regard the Champions Cup as their main goal and the URC as a means to stay in that competition, should be happy too after their comprehensive win over Munster, which followed on from their good win over the champions the previous week.
Based on those two performances, the Sharks should be contenders for both trophies they are playing for this year - it just depends how often they are able to go full strength and on what workload coach John Plumtree will have to be working around with his selections.
The biggest quandary faced by coach John Plumtree over the next month will surely be over what to do with his selection for the Stormers game. He has so many players returning in the days before that game from the Bok tour that work load may well have an impact on selection, particularly as the first Champions Cup game is scheduled for the following weekend.
There were a few teams with contending aspirations apart from the Stormers who had their ambitions hurt at the weekend, with Ulster suffering an unexpected two point defeat to Cardiff and Edinburgh having the momentum picked up by their two good wins ruined by a defeat away to the Ospreys. It adds to the perception that the bun fight at the end of the season for top eight spots is going to be every bit as intense as last season’s was.
Weekend Vodacom United Rugby Championship results
Benetton 15 Vodacom Bulls 17
Connacht 31 Dragons 7
Cardiff Rugby 21 Ulster 19
Scarlets 30 Zebre 8
DHL Stormers 17 Glasgow Warriors 28
Hollywoodbets Sharks 41 Munster 24
Ospreys 22 Edinburgh 13