Stormers blow Scarlets away
MATCH REPORT: The Stormers made it two wins from two matches in this season’s United Rugby Championship after they thumped Scarlets 52-7 in Stellenbosch on Saturday.
The Capetonians scored eight tries on their way to victory and they even secured the bonus point in the first half.
Scrumhalf Paul de Wet and loose forward Marcel Theunissen both got a brace.
The Stormers will be sweating over Ruhan Nel ahead of their tour. The centre got knocked out while attempting a tackle in the 20th minute.
The Stormers dominated the early stages and they were rewarded after seven minutes when Scarlets were penalised for offside as they just held the South Africans at bay. Theunissen took a quick tap penalty and wriggled over under the posts.
Theunissen then helped himself to a second try shortly after when the Stormers’ rolling maul had Scarlets on the back foot and he controlled from the back to crash over.
Scarlets got themselves back into the game with an almost carbon copy of the first Stormers try when Hardy took a quick tap penalty to go in under the sticks.
But Stormers hit back and Theunissen broke the Scarlets line from a line-out win and as the ball was recycled, scrumhalf De Wet squirmed over.
The bonus point was secured just short of half-time when a quick counter-attack opened up Scarlets and Courtanll Skosan drew in the tackler before flipping inside to Clayton Blommetjies to stroll in.
It was a line-out again that brought the fifth try with Sacha Feinberg-Mngomezulu breaking the line before playing inside to the supporting ben Loader to crash over.
De Wet claimed a second try early in the second half when too many missed tackles from Scarlets allowed him to dive over in the corner.
Stormers demonstrated their control with the try of the game on the hour-mark when quick hands took the ball left to right and they kept it alive beautifully to send it back the other way for Feinberg-Mngomezulu to stretch out a hand and touch down.
Skosan wrapped up the scoring when he went in for the Stormers’ eighth try of the afternoon late on.
Man of the match: Scrumhalf Paul de Wet was a livewire on attack and he scored two tries as well. Stormers flank Marcel Theunissen was a beast with ball in hand. It often took more than one player to bring him down and he got a brace as well and he had a hand in another score. However, the award goes to centre Sacha Feinberg-Mngomezulu who was a standout on attack again. He gave the Scarlets plenty of problems and he got his name on the scoresheet again.
The scorers:
For Stormers:
Tries: Theunissen 2, De Wet 2, Blommetjies, Loader, Feinberg-Mngomezulu, Skosan
Cons: Blommetjies 2, Feinberg-Mngomezulu 4
For Scarlets:
Try: Hardy
Con: Lloyd
Teams:
Stormers: 15 Warrick Gelant, 14 Ben Loader, 13 Ruhan Nel, 12 Sacha Feinberg-Mngomezulu, 11 Leolin Zas, 10 Clayton Blommetjies, 9 Paul de Wet, 8 Evan Roos, 7 Hacjivah Dayimani, 6 Marcel Theunissen, 5 Ruben van Heerden, 4 Adre Smith, 3 Neethling Fouche (captain), 2 Joseph Dweba, 1 Ali Vermaak.
Replacements: 16 Andre-Hugo Venter, 17 Sti Sithole, 18 Brok Harris, 19 Gary Porter, 20 Ben-Jason Dixon, 21 Nama Xaba, 22 Herschel Jantjies, 23 Courtnall Skosan.
Scarlets: 15 Johnny McNicholl, 14 Ioan Nicholas, 13 Joe Roberts, 12 Jonathan Davies (captain), 11 Ryan Conbeer, 10 Ioan Lloyd, 9 Kieran Hardy, 8 Carwyn Tuipulotu, 7 Dan Davis, 6 Taine Plumtree, 5 Morgan Jones, 4 Alex Craig, 3 Sam Wainwright, 2 Shaun Evans, 1 Kemsley Mathias.
Replacements: 16 Isaac Young, 17 Wyn Jones, 18 Harri O’Connor, 19 Jac Price, 20 Ben Williams, 21 Archie Hughes, 22 Charlie Titcombe, 23 Eddie James.
Referee: Sam Grove-White
Assistant referees: Griffin Colby, Christopher Allison
TMO: Mike Adamson
Additional reporting: @URCOfficial
