Are the Stormers South Africa's biggest underachievers?
STAT ATTACK: Heading into the United Rugby Championship quarterfinals, @rugby365com looks into the Stormers’ play-off record.
The Western Cape is a region teeming with talent, and yet trophies in the professional era have been few and far between for the Cape Town-based franchise.
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Yet year in and year out, the Stormers’ supporters ask themselves how they did not manage to win yet another play-off match following a good season. So what does their record look like in knock-out rugby?
Quarterfinals
The Stormers participated in six quarterfinals, most notably their first three being at Newlands Stadium during the Super Rugby era, where they lost all of them.
The second three came during the URC era where they have won two at home and lost one away last season to their selfsame opponents in Glasgow Warriors this weekend.
This amounts to a poor 33 percent success rate in the quarterfinals.
Semifinals
Although their semifinal record reads a bit better, the fact remains that they could only win one out of five during the Super Rugby era, which came in 2010 against the Waratahs.
The Stormers are, however, two from two in the URC era but in total, their success rate in the semifinals is a decent 42 percent.
Finals
The Capetonians only participated in three Finals throughout their 28-year history.
Their first came in an all-South African affair during the Super Rugby era when they went down 17-25 in 2010 to their arch-rivals the Bulls.
They would go on to get their revenge against the Bulls 12 years later when they claimed their first and only intercontinental championship by winning the inaugural URC trophy.
The Stormers went on to host back-to-back Finals when they faced Munster the following year but conceded a late try in the match to go down to the Irishmen and relinquish the championship.
This amounts to a 33.3 percent success rate in Finals.
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