Following the Stormers’ 44-21 victory over Cardiff in the United Rugby Championship quarter-finals, here are our five takeaways from the clash at the DHL Stadium.
Top line
The Stormers are through to the final four of the URC, joining the Glasgow Warriors and Bulls, and will now face either Leinster or the Lions. John Dobson’s men were made to work hard for their 23-point victory but turned the screw at the set-piece and regularly forced errors and penalties out of Cardiff.
The Welsh outfit broke the deadlock and it was a try against the run of play with Cam Winnett racing away down the pitch after the Stormers conceded possession inside the visitors’ 22. The hosts’ reply was swift as Andre-Hugo Venter grazed the whitewash after a driving maul and a sharp lineout move led to the second try not too long after as man of the match Ntuthuko Mchunu rampaged over the line.
Mchunu was deservedly voted as the best on the day due to his scrummaging prowess which led to Keiron Assiratti’s yellow card in the 31st minute, and the Stormers quickly capitalised through Leolin Zas after some Damian Willemse magic.
Taine Basham and James Botham scored either side of Sacha Feinberg-Mngomezulu’s five-pointer but Cardiff’s momentum was stalled entirely when Javan Sebastian was sent to the sin bin after Paul de Villiers’ try.
Jurie Matthee’s penalty in the 68th minute gave the Stormers a 13-point buffer and the game was put to bed when JJ Kotze powered over the line with Matthee adding the extras and another penalty to rub salt into the Welsh outfit’s wounds.
Stormers set-piece superiority but attack profligate
Dobson was asked to cast his eye to next season with regard to his propping stocks, with Wilco Louw arriving in Cape Town to an already overflowing pool of talent.
“We got the best scrum penalty differential in the URC, and we don’t want to tamper with that,” he admitted. “I think we’ll lose some of our ability to put the opposition under pressure to exit if we don’t have that attacking scrum.”
Dobson said this while explaining why it is so important that they hold onto all of their powerful front rowers, as the scrum is such a major part of their game and it showed again today. The Stormers were regularly able to eke out penalty after penalty at scrum time, thanks largely to the demolition job Mchunu did on both Cardiff tightheads, and eventually referee Eoghan Cross had to take matters into his own hands. He duly issued a yellow card to Assiratti, who had conceded four penalties at the set-piece as he crumbled under the pressure from Mchunu. His replacement, Sebastian, didn’t fare much better either as the game seemingly moved from one set-piece to the next.
To make matters worse for Cardiff was just how effective the Stormers’ lineout was too, with the set-piece being the source of the home side’s first two tries and their fifth. For much of the match, it was wash and repeat: the Stormers won a scrum penalty, kicked up the pitch, won the lineout, formed a drive, and when it stalled, they attacked. What will frustrate Dobson, and it has been an issue for much of this season, was the conversion rate once they entered Cardiff’s final quarter.
Ruhan Nel and Stefan Ungerer were held up over the line while the hosts repeatedly tried to force the issue and instead threw poor-placed and timed passes that simply let Cardiff off the hook. Dobson has rued this fact several times in recent weeks as the Stormers have no issue with entries into the opposition’s 22, racking up 12 in 65 minutes, but it’s the ruthlessness once they get there, averaging just 2.58 points per entry.
In reality, this profligacy made the quarter-final a much closer affair than it really should have been. Cardiff deserve credit for their relentlessness on defence, but at the same time, they were very much aided by the Stormers’ inaccuracies.
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Cardiff suffocate under pressure
South African teams really thrive in the pressure game, setting up camp in the opposition’s half, happy to go from set-piece to set-piece, eke out penalties, maul and repeat, and Cardiff felt the brunt of that in Cape Town.
The Welsh outfit simply could not compete at scrum time, and while they managed to stall the maul multiple times, they didn’t do so legally and were made to pay for that fact. The penalties just kept racking up, with Cardiff’s count more than double that of the Stormers for long periods of the match. That resulted in two yellow cards for repeated infringements, routinely giving the hosts access to their 22 and meant that they were always playing on the back foot.
Cardiff have been the dark horses of this URC season, as very few would have given them a chance of making it to this point of the tournament at the start of their campaign, and that fight was evident in their performance today, but quite simply, a team cannot win when they are leaking penalties in the manner that they did today.
There is a lot that Corniel van Zyl can take from this season as focus now shifts to the 2026/27 campaign, but as Cardiff and Munster learnt today, to compete against the South African teams, you have to find some parity in the set-pieces.
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Sacha Feinberg-Mngomezulu concern
The Cape Town faithful will be holding their breath for some good news around their star man Feinberg-Mngomezulu, who limped off the pitch after finishing off a well-taken try in the 51st minute. In an act of desperation, Cardiff number 10 Ioan Lloyd attempted a cross kick that landed safely into the hands of Stormers flyer Seabelo Senatla. The speedster held the ball up well before serving Feinberg-Mngomezulu on a platter, who had run a smart support line to canter through for the try.
John Dobson’s verdict Sacha Feinberg-Mngomezulu: ‘It’s a big blow’
However, in the act of scoring, the playmaker fell awkwardly and looked to have suffered an ankle injury in doing so. Feinberg-Mngomezulu’s form has been up and down throughout the season and even in matches, but when he is on song, there are few if any better than the young Springbok.
Dobson will be desperate to have him at his disposal, and perhaps his withdrawal was more precautionary than essential.
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All eyes turn to Dublin
“Go and do the job for us that side,” Stormers skipper Ruhan Nel remarked after the game as he threw his support behind the Lions who tackle Leinster in Dublin in the last of the quarter-finals.
The Joburgers will have the whole of Cape Town screaming for them this evening as they look to upset the odds and beat the Irish giants, which would result in the Lions returning to South Africa to face off against the Stormers in the semi-finals. If they are unable to do so, then it will be Dobson and co who will board a flight and will travel to Dublin, where they will face the defending champions.
All three of the quarter-finals this season have been won by the home team on the day but we’ve seen in seasons gone by that winning on the road is possible but not easy. The Lions, like Cardiff, have been dark horses this campaign but is Dublin just a step to far for Ivan van Rooyen’s men? The Stormers will hope not.
READ MORE: Bulls player ratings: Cameron Hanekom in a ‘different class’ as late call-up ‘obliterates’ Munster after Springbok’s withdrawal
