Following the Stormers’ 49-12 victory over the Bristol Bears, here are our five takeaways from the Investec Champions Cup clash at the DHL Stadium.
The top line
The Stormers got their Champions Cup campaign off to an ideal start with a bonus-point victory over a young Bristol Bears outfit in Cape Town.
John Dobson’s charges made hard work of what should have been a rather straightforward fixture, with Pat Lam selecting an incredibly inexperienced team for the trip to the Mother City.
JJ Kotze’s 20-minute red card in the first half put the Stormers under unnecessary pressure, and it was only made worse when Leolin Zas was sent to the sin bin before the sin-binning time elapsed, reducing the hosts to 13 men for a period in the second half.
Sol Moody immediately made the Stormers pay for Zas’ failure to go low into the tackle. Luckily for the hosts, Bristol gifted them a score almost immediately as Jonathan Roche cantered over for a second try.
The Stormers owned the first and last quarter in this match, when they actually had 15 players on the park, with Man of the Match Seabelo Senatla scoring the first and assisting Zas for the second.
Joe Owen bumped off Sacha Feinberg-Mngomezulu to open the Bears’ account, with Roche replying soon after as the Stormers went into the break with a 21-7 buffer.
Moody’s score made it a seven-point game with half an hour to play but his try was cancelled out by Roche’s second five-pointer. Warrick Gelant, Andre-Hugo Venter and Zas all touched down in the final 10 minutes of the game to make the scoreline look far more respectable considering the gulf in experience, class and pedigree.
Beauty and the Beast
When the Stormers did get it right today, it was a sight to behold, with Dobbo’s big men battering the baby Bears upfront with the backs cutting loose out wide.
The Bristol scrum had simply no answer to the home side’s pack as time and time again they were shunted into reserve at breakneck speed. Sazi Sandi and Vernon Matongo made mince meat of Jimmy Halliwell and Jake Woolmore, even when they were a man short in the set-piece and when the Bears were hanging on for dear life; Dobson channelled his inner villain and threw on the Springboks propping duo of Ntuthuko Mchunu and Zachary Porthen. Not only did the duo continue to batter the Bears’ pack but they added fresh tree-trunk legs as they charged into collisions.
And when the pack was done with flogging the set-piece, the backs went about scoring some truly sensational tries. Senatla was crucial in the first two tries, scoring the first off a brilliant inside ball from Sandi before the ex-Blitzboks skinned four Bristol defenders with his majestic footwork to before laying up Zas with an offload.
Feinberg-Mngomezulu and Damian Willemse provided the playmaking and creativity; Roche was the glue in the midfield while Wandi Simelane showed flashes of brilliance after coming into the starting XV in a late change for Ruhan Nel.
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Stormers discipline lets them down
The final scoreline was not nearly as overwhelming as it should have be and the Stormers only have themselves to blame. Cobus Reinach’s intercept try was chalked off courtesy of Zas’ high tackle, while the hosts weren’t disciplined enough at times to really twist the knife when the opportunity arose.
While the scrum was dominant, Mchunu and Porthen were over-eager and twice wasted an opportunity at the set-piece, letting the Bears’ scrum that conceded a tighthead off the hook.
Evan Roos’ break in the final quarter was just another example of when the hosts weren’t disciplined enough. He forced an offload that simply was not on and it gifted Bristol possession back. He wasn’t alone in doing so, with Feinberg-Mngomezulu pulling the trigger with attacking kicks far too often.
It was moments like that and Willemse’s spill with the try-line begging that meant that the win was comprehensive but not emphatic.
Springboks-load Bomb Squad
On paper, the Stormers had the beating of this Bristol outfit in the starting XV but it was those on the bench where the hosts really had the advantage. Dobson could turn to an entirely new Springboks front row plus the likes of Deon Fourie and Warrick Gelant and least we forget, two of the country’s most promising young talents in scrum-half Haashim Pead and lock Riley Norton.
All of those mentioned certainly exploded in the final quarter to bloat the scoreline whilst Siya Kolisi did the same as got 20 minutes on the sidelines when Venter was required in the front row due to Kotze’s red card.
Ultimately, Dobson invested in a Springboks-heavy Bomb Squad insurance policy and was duly rewarded as there were periods today when it looked like they wouldn’t get the bonus point.
Bear cubs
Lam was told that he selected the youngest-ever Bristol Bears team during his tenure in charge of the PREM Rugby club, but it didn’t show as much as one would have thought.
It’s a credit not only to the players themselves but the structures that the former Samoan forward has implemented at the club that so many academy players fronted up against a top South African outfit.
For 60-odd minutes, this match was contest, the Bears didn’t really look as if they could win it but they made a mighty good fist of it.
Questions will still be raised around the value of the pool stage matches that a club can field a second-string side in the opening round and still potentially progress to the knockout stages but ultimately it’s a gamble that the West Country outfit were willing to take.
Still, Lam would have got huge value out of this match in Cape Town with rookie pivot Sam Worsley putting in a very tidy shift in the number 10 jersey, while Georgian back-rower Luka Ivanish was fantastic.