Magnificent seven: Why these Stormers are the real deal

OPINION: The Stormers have succeeded in all the ways the Bulls and Sharks have failed during the first part of an eventful club season.

Bulls and Sharks fans should take heart, for as the Stormers have shown, a lot can happen in the space of three months.

Back in June, the Stormers were forced to do some soul-searching in the wake of their second-consecutive United Rugby Championship quarterfinal defeat to the Glasgow Warriors, as well as a pool-stage exit from the Champions Cup.

While the Stormers had all the ingredients to be a successful team, the results suggested that the balance of their approach required attention.

Fast forward to the present, where the Stormers have won seven games in a row, and are favouring an all-court game that strongly resembles that of Rassie Erasmus’ trend-setting Springboks.

When the Stormers claimed a 35-0 bonus-point victory against URC champions Leinster in September, it was rightly hailed as a performance and result for the ages.

Since then, the Stormers have beaten the Ospreys, Scarlets, Zebre Parma, Benetton and Munster.

John Dobson’s charges sit at the top of the URC ladder, and their points-difference of 124 (85 better than second-placed Cardiff) serves to show how dominant they’ve been on both sides of the ball.

Cardiff have led the way in terms of kicks from hand (195) and kicks retained (47), but it’s significant to note how far the Stormers have come in these departments.

After six URC matches, they rank second for kicks from hand (175) and kicks retained (36).

The Stormers made another statement when they beat Munster – one of the form sides in this season’s URC – in Limerick.

Following that result, expectations may have been tempered ahead of the Champions Cup opener in Bayonne, some six days later.

Yet the Stormers went on to claim a deserved 26-17 win this past Friday.

The result extended the Stormers’ winning run to seven matches, and their successful streak in Europe to five.

It may be stating the obvious, but a team that thrashes Leinster and then goes on to win in Limerick and Bayonne is the real deal.

Apart from harnessing their kicking strengths to great effect, there’s another reason for their sustained success.

Earlier this year, some within the camp lamented the departure of big names like Joseph Dweba and Manie Libbok and the impact it might have on squad depth ahead of the 2025/26 season.

But since the curtain fell on that campaign, Dobson has made a number of savvy signings, while his selections and management strategies over the first part of this season have been equally shrewd.

The other big South African teams have struggled without their Boks in recent months, whereas the Stormers have managed to juggle their resources effectively.

The bench selections have been highly effective, as the results and performances indicate.

Dobson has used the six-two split to manage the workload of his charges, and to attack the opposition in the second half of matches.

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First try of the season was an absolute BEAUT by @THESTORMERS 🤩

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— Investec Champions Cup (@ChampionsCup) December 5, 2025

The Stormers scrum has followed in the footsteps of the Bok set piece, with the second-half effort often surpassing that of the first.

The forwards have maintained their intensity across the respective departments for 80 minutes, and again, that is down to the six-two strategy as well as Dobson’s preference for utility players, such Ruan Ackermann, Adré Smith, BJ Dixon, Marcel Theunissen, Connor Evans and others.

Like the Boks, the Stormers have often favoured four second-row options in their match 23, and essentially two fresh tight-five units.

On the back of this tight-five dominance, loose forwards such as Paul de Villiers and Evan Roos have produced influential performances at the breakdown and gainline.

Out wide, Jurie Mattee and Clinton Swart have found more space to attack or deploy the kicking strategy to telling effect.

A few eyebrows were raised after Dobson backed Swart – essentially the Stormers’ fourth-choice flyhalf after Sacha Feinberg-Mngomezulu, Matthee and Jean-Luc du Plessis – to start in Bayonne.

Swart went on to contribute 16 points to the cause, and at no stage did the former Pumas player look out of his depth. The same could be said of Matthee, who scored 20 points against Leinster back in September.

Dobson has said that something special is happening at the Stormers, and the recent results certainly lend substance to his statement.

If they back up the win in Bayonne with a victory against La Rochelle in Gqeberha this coming weekend, they should be well placed to qualify for the Champions Cup play-offs.

In the long term, they will only get stronger as their key players return to action.

Feinberg-Mngomezulu, Cobus Reinach and Damian Willemse will bolster the team’s attack and kicking options in the coming months.

And yet, it must be hugely encouraging to note how well the team has fared without these superstars in tow.

The Boks, of course, can’t play for their franchises every week over the course of a 10-month club season. This is why squad depth is so essential to success.

Teams that bank results and log points while their internationals are away – as the Stormers have done in the past few weeks and Leinster and others have done over the years – typically go on to secure home play-offs, and increase their chances of silverware.

No South African team has managed their resources better during the early stages of the 2025/26 club season.

The Bulls and Sharks have failed to strike the same balance in terms of their playing style and player-management strategy.

The Bulls are in a period of transition, with Johan Ackermann less than three months into the job after replacing director of rugby Jake White.

While they’ve produced some spectacular attacking performances, their poor discipline and defence has cost them key results.

Unlike the Stormers and their most recent opponents, Bordeaux-Bégles, the Bulls are yet to find the right balance.

Bordeaux finished with nearly twice as many kick metres as the Bulls this past Saturday (819 to 463), and retained seven kicks.

The French giants were hardly conservative, when you consider that they finished the game with 46 points and seven tries.

To be fair, the Bulls are well ahead of the Sharks, who continue to search for a definitive playing style and – following John Plumtree’s decision to step down – a coach that can take them forward.

JP Pietersen will lead the team in the short term, but it remains to be seen how much the coaching structures will change in the lead up to next season.

Just as the Cape side has taken important lessons from Erasmus and the Boks, the Bulls and Sharks must consider why Dobson and company have been so successful in recent months.

While it’s still early days, the wider Stormers squad has set the platform for a good season, and the team will only grow stronger when all of their key players return to action.