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Dominant Stormers sound ominous warning with perfect start

football26 September 2025 19:00
By:Gavin Rich
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The DHL Stormers have, in the past, been let down by slow starts to their Vodacom United Rugby Championship challenge, but this time they got it spot on as they made the perfect start with a comprehensive 35-0 bonus-point win over champions Leinster at DHL Stadium on Friday night.

The Stormers were wearing their new jersey, a striped strip that is a lot more similar to the blue and white hoops of their mother union Western Province, and boy did they celebrate the first airing of that new identity in fine style as they scored four tries to nil on a night where, had it not been for a bit of wastefulness plus a spot of bad luck in the first half, they might well have hit 50.

In some ways, it was a game not dissimilar from the Springboks’ big win over New Zealand a few weeks ago. In the sense that the hosts were dominant from start to finish, but made some mistakes in the first half that, for a whil,e looked like it could possibly cost them.

Certainly, their 6-0 lead at halftime should have been far more one-sided than that, with a 15-point margin being more apt given how they bossed proceedings after the early scare of a conceded scrum penalty.

After that little aberration, the Stormers' eight were in complete command, but they just couldn’t get the ball across the line. Jurie Matthee, who produced a solid all-round performance, missed two place-kicks at goal in the first half, one of them to be fair from long range, and he was just short, and one drop-goal opportunity.

The Stormers were also over the tryline twice, first with Paul de Villiers, and what a beast he is going to be in South African rugby, going over for a driving maul try but then it being chalked off because lock Adre Smith was guilty of obstruction, and the second when Wandesile Simelane, playing fullback in this game, crossed the line but the TMO picked up a forward pass in the buildup.

BOSSING TERRITORY AND POSSESSION

Both were the correct decisions, but had the Stormers got those two right, they would have been 20 points up at the break. That they weren’t must have sent a few shivers of consternation through their supporters, but in truth, even then, it was hard to see the Stormers losing, given the way they were bossing both territory and possession.

No, this wasn’t the strongest Leinster team, but then it was also some way short of a Stormers full-strength team too, with several players either missing through injury or Springbok commitments. Yes, there was some rust, but then there would be in the first game of the season. So all said, the Stormers were impressive, and they made their dominance count after halftime as they quickly got the scoreboard moving.

In effect, the game was wrapped up in the first four minutes after halftime. First, there was a penalty from Matthee that put his team more than a score ahead at 9-0 after 42 minutes and then a poor Leinster clearance was seized by Seabelo Senatla, who put the wheels in motion for a try to Stefan Ungerer.

With Matthee’s conversion, it meant the Stormers were 16-0 ahead, and with Leinster having shown so little until that point, it was clear there would be no way back. What mattered to the Stormers after that was the four-try bonus point, which they edged closer to when impressive No8 Evan Roos dotted down his team’s second try off a driving maul.

Then the Leinster indiscipline started catching up with them as they paid for a slew of penalties by first having Matt Deegan yellow-carded, and soon after that, Tommy O’Brien was carded for a dangerous tackle. That meant Leinster, already hopelessly outgunned, had 13 men playing against 15 at one stage and further tries from Ruan Ackermann on debut and then Matthee, to give the flyhalf a personal haul of 20 points, made sure that the Stormers banked their full house of log points.

It was certainly a far cry from the way they have started most seasons, although there may be something in the fact that this was the first time they have started a URC campaign at DHL Stadium. The only other time they started at home, it was at the Danie Craven Stadium. They needed to be pitch-perfect to exploit their chance to make a positive start and, although there were inevitable early-season errors, you couldn’t have asked for much more of them than they delivered.

SCORES

DHL Stormers 35 - Tries: Stef Ungerer, Evan Roos, Ruan Ackermann and Jurie Matthee; Conversions: Jurie Matthee 3; Penalties: Jurie Matthee 3.

Leinster 0

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