Hits and Misses: Marvellous Mchunu and Stumbling Sharks
OPINION: Round 16 of the United Rugby Championship has come and gone, and while some will look back at the weekend fondly, others will rather try to forget it.
The Sharks were the first South African team to run out, but their match against Edinburgh didn’t go as they would have hoped, as they suffered a season-ending defeat.
The Stormers, meanwhile, were the stars of Round 16 as they taught Glasgow Warriors a rugby lesson in style, while the Lions followed suit with an impressive showing against Connacht right afterwards. The Bulls, on the other hand, concluded action on Saturday night with a gritty win over Scarlets.
With just two rounds of regular-season matches remaining, we look at the highs and the lows from URC matches involving South African sides.
Hits:
Sensational Stormers
John Dobson’s unit made up for the implosion against Connacht in style as they produced one of their best performances in recent memory to thrash Glasgow Warriors 48-12 at Cape Town Stadium.
The home team snapped their losing streak against the Scotsmen to go top of the log after blanking the visitors in the second half while doubling their own digits.
Leading into the headline show, Glasgow had won the previous five meetings between the two sides. But they had no chance on Saturday.
The Stormers’ pack of forwards menaced the opposition, and while replacement prop Oli Kebble conceded a few scrum penalties, it proved a mere speck in their otherwise-powerful set-piece performance.
The Stormers did well to play to what was required, mixing a tighter game with flash-filled moments when it was on. They were a sight to behold. They were adaptable.
Another major positive was how the Stormers sustained their efforts. There was no late-game crash.
They started like a house on fire and camped in Glasgow’s half in the opening quarter, with the opposition only cracking into the Stormers’ half in the 24th minute after a grubber by Sacha Feinberg-Mngomezulu just inside Glasgow’s half gifted them their first visit, which resulted in a try by Ollie Smith.
Franco Smith’s team managed to get another one before the break, and it was at that point that the threat of Glasgow gaining momentum arose, but the Stormers wouldn’t allow it, and those 12 points were all the Capetonians were willing to grant them.
It was all Stormers from there on and, throughout the match, they got everything right that they got wrong in their last match.
While Dobson was left to rue a host of individual errors following their loss against Connacht, this time there were too many impressive individual performances to mention. Their decision-making was also much improved, while they also traded in the error count that plagued them last week for a more clinical display.
Not even Glasgow’s deadly outside backs could dent the Stormers’ defence.
Then there were those tries…
The stunning dot-down by try connoisseur Evan Roos, which resulted from a brilliant piece of support play, was easily the try of the match.
If the Stormers were looking to produce a statement performance, this was it.
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Evan can’t stop scoring! 🤩👏🏼#BKTURC | #KidsRound | #STOvGLA pic.twitter.com/BRe6ii7ZxJ
— BKT United Rugby Championship (URC) (@URCOfficial) April 25, 2026
Marvellous Mchunu
A performance so good it deserves a special mention.
It’s not often that a prop gets to brag about being the showstopper, especially outside the scrum arena, but it’s a bragging right the exciting loosehead earned in the first URC match on Saturday.
He put on a superb display away from the set-piece and grabbed two tries in the opening 14 minutes, playing a major role in the Stormers’ early blitz with his powerful carries and deceptive skillset.
It was all on display leading up to his second try, where he made the most of less-than-ideal ball from a collapsed maul before shrugging off a tackler to give the Stormers a 17-0 lead.
The Man of the Match award could not have gone to a more deserving player.
Rise of the Lions
They haven’t even reached Round 18 yet, and Ivan van Rooyen’s Lions already have a new personal best.
Their 33-21 victory over Connacht at Ellis Park marked their 10th win of the season – the first time ever they’ve reached double digits in the ‘matches won’ column in the URC.
Last season, they recorded eight wins across the league phase. In the 2022/23 and 2023/24 editions, they registered nine wins in each season, and during the inaugural 2021/2022 season, they managed eight positive results.
This year, they’ve surpassed those numbers with two rounds to go.
And what a performance it was to reach their grand 10.
Last week, Connacht put 33 points on the Stormers; this time, the Lions put 33 on them.
Man-of-the-Match Quan Horn led the Lions’ demolition of the Irish side as they scored an A on attack and defence with some good-looking tries to boot.
With their latest result, the Lions have now all but clipped their ticket to the quarterfinals.
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When the big man makes the break, you’ve got to finish it off 💪#BKTURC #URC #KidsRound | #LIOvCON pic.twitter.com/ffBRK9ekxC
— BKT United Rugby Championship (URC) (@URCOfficial) April 25, 2026
Misses:
Stumbling Sharks
Their 28-33 defeat to Edinburgh at the Hive Stadium snapped the final thread for JP Pietersen’s men.
While the Sharks still had hopes of securing a play-off following their defeat to Ospreys in Bridgend in Round 15 – with defence coach Joey Mongalo saying they still have a 10 percent chance following that loss – even that flamelet of hope disappeared with their latest defeat.
The Sharks are in 10th place on the standings, 11 points behind Ulster in eighth spot. A top-eight finish just isn’t possible for them anymore.
To compound their troubles, there were two new additions to their injury list, with Jaden Hendrikse and Siya Masuku the Sharks’ latest casualties.
Sure, an injury horror run as gruesome as that of the Sharks can no doubt be disruptive – it would be to any team – but there are games in which the Sharks simply weren’t good enough; their latest being one of them.
As expected, the South Africans dominated the set-pieces, but they just could not turn that dominance into opportunities for a much-needed win.
‘Ugly’ Bulls’ Discipline
It feels wrong criticising a winning team, especially as they depart Wales with nine out of the maximum 10 league points, but the fact of the matter is they can count themselves lucky – or greatly indebted to Handre Pollard’s boot – for coming out on top by 23 points to Scarlets’ 21 at Parc y Scarlets.
When you consider how tough games on tour can be, regardless of where you play, that criticism feels even more unjustified.
However, the Bulls’ ill-discipline is a troublesome trait that will cost them dearly when it matters most going forward.
At the weekend, Johan Ackermann’s team lost Stedman Gans and Francois Klopper to yellow cards, with Gans copping a yellow for playing a player without the ball and Klopper making his way to the sinbin after making a tackle while offside.
It was the boot of Springbok flyhalf Pollard that saved the Bulls, with a late penalty sealing the deal for the visitors.
Yes, the fact that the Bulls found a way to win and the impact of their Boks off the bench are major positives that could also easily have them featured under the ‘Hits’ of the weekend, but that ill-discipline is too big a factor to ignore.
@rugby365com
