VIDEO: The game was a 'testimonial' to SA's World Champion status
It was a typical South African derby of Test-match intensity.
Those clichés are true of the big North-South United Rugby Championship derby in Cape Town at the weekend.
However, it comes nowhere close to how brutally physical the contest between the unbeaten Stormers and a Bulls team in a six-match losing streak was.
The Stormers showed incredible character to claim a 13-8 win against the Bulls at a packed Cape Town Stadium, to make it 10 consecutive wins this season.
The game was in the balance from the first to the last whistle, and in the end, the Stormers did enough, with a late maul try sealing a hard-fought victory in front of a crowd of 53,682.
The opening half-hour saw huge intensity and physicality, without either side managing to break through.
“It was a tough SA derby,” was the understated response by Stormers Director of Rugby John Dobson.
In a measured utterance, he admitted to some frustration that there were not more tries for the 53,5600 spectators to celebrate.
“What was amazing was the contest, everywhere,” Dobson added.
“This is what makes the South African game so great at the moment and why we win World Cups.
“We are so used to it [this level of intensity].
“There’s a contest at the line-outs and mauls, the breakdown [was] a massive contest, which is really good for the South African game.
“I would have liked a bit more flow, but that is the product of the pressure being put down everywhere in this contest.”
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It is this type of never-say-die attitude, which saw the winning try scored in the 79th minute, that epitomised the Springboks’ triumphant march in France in 2023, where three consecutive one-point wins (in the quarterfinal, semifinal and Final) saw them claim a record fourth World Cup in Stade de France in Paris.
The Stormers versus Bulls face-off in Cape Town at the weekend certainly wasn’t aesthetically a classic encounter in terms of tries.
However, it was entertaining as a brutally close-fought battle.
The error rate on both sides was a cause for concern, with the Stormer conceding 19 turnovers to the Bulls’ 16 and 13 penalties to the Bulls’ 16.
Dobson admitted it will be a challenge to maintain that level of intensity week after week.
“You could hear the thuds in the coaches’ box,” the Stormers boss said.
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