Stormers start with a bang at Loftus

The Stormers laid down an early marker when they overpowered the Bulls 29-17 in their Super Rugby opener at Loftus Versfeld on Saturday.

The Stormers were clearly the better side and deserved their victory, surprising even though it was in a round which trumpeted to the world that homeground is not the advantage it used to be. For the fifth time in six Super Rugby matches the away team won and deserved to win.

The Bulls won the Springbok count 12-4. They had the men with experience, or so one expected, but it was the team with a third of the experience that played with greater calm, precision and coherence. It was the team with the dozen that had the serious deficiencies.

The Bulls started well enough and looked to be settling for a sumptuous victory and at times in the match they lifted themselves for a burst of battering but for the rest they relied on an unprofitable process of one-at-a-time phases. They once had several players on the overlap and chose to put the blinkers on and take the tackle. It is so sad to see a player like Jan Serfontein, such a creative player as a school boy, reduced to mindless and fruitless bashing.

But perhaps the biggest surprise was to see the Bulls destroyed at the scrums. They started off with a front row of Springboks against no Springboks and the Stormers had young locks who had a loose-forward look about them but the Stormers had the Bulls backpedalling so that they must have hated every one of the match's 13 scrums – 13 scrums with 21 problems.

It also did not help that they missed two penalty kicks at goal in the first half which they ended trailing 17-5.

At the first line-out in the first minute of the match the Stormers were penalised for a bit of elementary offside at a line-out, and from the resultant line-out the Bulls battered the Stormers, going through 12 phases in which Piet van Zyl and Lappies Labuschagne were close to the line.

They kicked out the second penalty for a five-metre line-out. Unlike the rest of their play in the next 77 minutes, the Bulls had a sharp, clever and novel plan at the line-out  maul in which they duped most Stormers into applying their force to the part of the maul where there was no ball and fewest Bulls. Deon Stegmann was credited with the try. 5-0 after three minutes.

That was it.

They did not look like scoring a try again and a few minutes later they made the simplest of errors to give the Stormers a lead which they held for 72 minutes.

Dillyn Leyds, a multitalented backline player, kicked high and chased after the ball. Jürgen Visser, the Bulls fullback, one of six starting backs in the Bulls side for whom the Cape is the land of their birth, was well in position under the ball as Leyds chased his kick. Leyds was some distance from Visser when Visser knocked the ball forward a goodly way. Leyds snatch it up and raced over the 22 for a try at the posts. 7-5 after 8 minutes.

It may have been a freak accident/incident but it, like the scrumming, it may have been devastating to Bulls morale.

When Arno Botha was penalised at a tackle, Catrakelis goaled. 10-5 after 13 minutes.

Soon after this Werner Kruger left the field with an injured ankle and later in the half Botha, just back from injury, went off with a sore shoulder, to be replaced by Pierre Spies.

JJ Engelbrecht was penalised at a tackle and the Stormers kicked out for a line-out. They mauled and were on advantage when the went wide to the right and then back left where Duane Vermeulen ran cleverly onto a clever pass by Damian de Allende to cut through and score under the posts, touched only after had had scored. 17-5 after 28 minutes. It could have been more but Catrakelis's long penalty hit an upright and stayed out.

The Bulls started the second half as if they had a new, high octane resolve, They battered and two penalties took the score to 17-11. But they could not keep it up and gradually their zeal ebbed away.  True they got as close as 20-17 but after that they faded and the team from the coast ended the match at altitude the stronger of the two teams.

The Stormers were within an ace of scoring when De Allende dived for the left corner as Rudy Paige and Handré Pollard grabbed him and De Allende knocked the ball on in the act of grounding it.

The referee referred the matter to the TMO but De Allende immediately told him there was no need to as he had knocked the ball on. It was a moment of rare delight.

Catrakelis kicked another penalty goal and his replacement Kurt Coleman kicked a long, angled penalty goal and then a soaring dropped goal, and the Stormers had won well – really well.

Man of the Match: The candidates were Stormers – several of them, from new man Vincent Koch in the front row to Cheslin Kolbe at full back. They included the massive figure of Duane Vermeulen, South Africa's Player of the Year in 2014, energetic, efficient Michael Rhodes and, our choice, inside centre Damien de Allende who was up against the Springbok incumbent and still was the game's brightest player – on attack and defence and with an great act of sportsmanship.

The scorers:

For the Bulls:

Try: Stegmann

Pens: Pollard 4

For the Stormers:

Tries: Leyds, Vermeulen

Cons: Catrakilis 2

Pens: Catrakilis 3, Coleman

DG: Coleman

Teams:

Bulls: 15 Jurgen Visser, 14 Bjorn Basson, 13 JJ Engelbrecht, 12 Jan Serfontein, 11 Francois Hougaard, 10 Handré Pollard, 9 Piet van Zyl, 8 Arno Botha, 7 Pieter Labuschagne, 6 Deon Stegmann, 5 Victor Matfield (captain), 4 Jacques du Plessis, 3 Werner Kruger, 2 Adriaan Strauss, 1 Trevor Nyakane.

Replacements: 16 Callie Visagie, 17 Morné Mellett, 18 Dayan van der Westhuizen, 19 Grant Hattingh, 20 Pierre Spies, 21 Rudy Paige, 22 Jacques-Louis Potgieter, 23 Jesse Kriel.

Stormers: 15 Cheslin Kolbe, 14 Johnny Kotze, 13 Juan de Jongh, 12 Damian de Allende, 11 Dillyn Leyds, 10 Demetri Catrakilis, 9 Nic Groom, 8 Duane Vermeulen (captain), 7 Michael Rhodes, 6 Rynhardt Elstadt, 5 Ruan Botha, 4 Jean Kleyn, 3 Vincent Koch, 2 Siyabonga Ntubeni, 1 Steven Kitshoff.

Replacements: 16 Bongi Mbonambi, 17 Oliver Kebble, 18 Wilco Louw, 19 Jurie van Vuuren, 20 Nizaam Carr, 21 Louis Schreuder, 22 Kurt Coleman, 23 Huw Jones.

Referee: Jaco Peyper (South Africa)

Assistant referees: Jaco van Heerden (South Africa), Stephan Geldenhuys (South Africa)

TMO: Johan Greeff (South Africa)

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