Great advert for SA rugby as Stormers edge home

The DHL Stormers might have thought at some stages the luck just wasn’t with them but in the end they held on for a well deserved 26-20 win over their arch rivals the Vodacom Bulls in a high quality and pulsating Vodacom United Rugby Championship derby in Cape Town on Saturday.

The Stormers were most emphatically the better team in a high quality game that had the physicality of a test match but also at times the pace and tempo we used to associate with Super Rugby.

It was played in front of a massive and appreciative crowd and let it also be said also a great advert for Christmas rugby, certainly at the DHL Stadium, but the Bulls hung in and just didn’t go away on a night where they showed they scored three tries to two.

The DHL Stormers make it seven consecutive victories over the Vodacom Bulls in the United Rugby Championship ⛈#UnitedWeRise pic.twitter.com/Trudd0pU50 — SuperSport Rugby (@SSRugby) December 23, 2023

That though doesn’t tell the full story of the game, with the Stormers twice over the line in the first half for tries that were disallowed after consultation with the TMO, and then again in the second half when Damian Willemse flew in at the right corner flag but was adjudged to have knocked the ball on.

The first two disallowed tries were the ones that might have hurt the Stormers and would have been the big debating points had the Bulls, who for once was fronted by a pack that was better than them, particularly at scrum time, somehow managed to get up and get across the line as winners.

Both of them came within minutes of each other with the Stormers leading 16-10.

On both occasions Manie Libbok was lining up to kick the conversion that if successful would have made it 23-10 with just a few minutes to go