Stormers count cost of ‘bizarre’ win

Serious injuries to several key players took the gloss off the Stormers’ triumph over the Scarlets in a 92-point URC thriller at Cape Town Stadium on Saturday afternoon.

The Stormers held a 33-14 half-time lead before surviving a second-half comeback from the Welsh club to win 52-40 in round four of the competition.

John Dobson’s men needed two tries from replacement Yaqeen Ahmed inside the final 10 minutes to secure the result, which came at a cost ahead of next week’s visit from Ulster, who were beaten 34-26 by the Bulls at Loftus Versfeld on Saturday.

No 8 Hacjivah Dayimani has already been ruled out after a failed HIA, Lukhanyo Vokozela is subject to a second assessment, while fellow hookers Deon Fourie and André-Hugo Venter have hamstring and elbow injuries, respectively.

Speaking post-match, Dobson said losing three hookers took away their set-piece platform and admitted it had become a genuine crisis, with JJ Kotzé also suspended.

“The mouth guards were going like pinball. It was ping, ping!” he told the media. “I was reading through my contingency sheet. If you lose both hookers, there’s a plan, but I never thought about three.

“To lose three hookers takes away all our set-pieces. So it is a crisis.”

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Dobson praised his players for finding a way to win despite being deprived of their traditional strength in the closing stages.

“That’s our game, the set-piece. And then minutes 60 to 80 is when the hurt is meant to be done, and then suddenly we had that taken away.

“It was absolutely bizarre. That’s where I give them credit, because they weren’t getting it from the guys in the coaches’ box.”

The head coach said the hosts dominated late on, which he described as remarkable given their situation and lack of a set-piece platform.

“I thought actually the way we closed it, we were in ascendancy for the last 10 minutes, which was remarkable given no set-piece for a set-piece team.

“The way we defended at the end there, it was probably our best period of defence.”

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Skipper Paul de Villiers added: “It was crazy. Normally you can either scrum or lineout, but today neither of the two was working. Both were missing.”

Needing to even deputise throwing in to the lineouts, the flanker said the Stormers tried to avoid set-pieces.

“We wanted to stay away from the scrum and from the lineout. Maybe favour the scrum a bit more than the lineout because we knew that our job in general attack stays quite the same.

“There were a few times we kept the ball. When they kicked to touch, we tried to play quickly.

“We knew that in general attack, we know our roles, whereas it’s a bit different at the set-piece, where there were obviously guys out of position.”

Photo: Cole Cruickshank/Gallo Images