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Stormers win but alarm bells should be clanging

rugby17 January 2026 17:52| © SuperSport
By:Gavin Rich
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The DHL Stormers picked up the five log points they needed with a 39-26 win over Leicester Tigers in their final pool stage Investec Champions Cup match at DHL Stadium on Saturday but a far from perfect performance should be be a concern to the Cape team’s management.

The win means the Stormers move into second position overnight in their pool and will secure home ground advantage in their round of 16 game in April if home side La Rochelle beat Harlequins on Sunday afternoon.

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So it was mission accomplished for the Stormers, with at least a place in the next round assured.

Put another way, they managed to get as much as they could have hoped for from the game played in front of a crowd of 24 000 that started in bright sunshine and ended in an unseasonable downpour in terms of what it means for their Champions Cup challenge.

ERRORS AND SHODDY GAME MANAGEMENT

However, with two back-to-back Vodacom URC derbies against the Hollywoodbets Sharks coming up over the next two weeks, the high error rate and shoddy game management exhibited in this game has to be an area of grave concern for John Dobson.

Pragmatic rugby and good game management was what built the Stormers’ momentum when they won five matches overseas across both competitions in earlier in the season, but that has gone south since their return home as the game management has been problematic ever since they beat an under-strength La Rochelle team in Gqeberha in the second game in this competition in mid-December.

They took a 12-0 lead after quarter of an hour thanks to centre Jonathan Roche, probably the most impressive of the Stormers’ backs on the day, breaking through to set up a try to No8 Evan Roos in the seventh minute and then Andre Hugo driving over from a lineout maul.

However, the Stormers didn’t dominate the scrums like they have for much of the season and they also just made far too many basic errors against a team that was very under-strength and yet was competitive for most of the way just by sticking to the basics and showing the Stormers that sometimes there’s something to be said for per centage rugby.

There was nothing frilly about the visitors, they just eliminated mistakes and made sure they played in the Stormers half, which the hosts helped them with by being poor at their exiting and just playing too much rugby in their own half.

MAY BE TRYING TO HARD TO WOW WITH FLASH

It almost feels like since the Stormers have returned from overseas they have put pressure on themselves to play a more crowd pleasing rugby, paying attention to that ever overriding narrative of what is supposed to be Cape rugby’s DNA.

Maybe as a first step to preparing for the Sharks, Dobson should ban all talk of DNA and get it into the players’ heads that the most important thing is the win, something that they managed with telling effect by being more direct and relying on their forwards earlier in the season.

Sacha Feinberg-Mngomezulu, captain for the Stormers on the day, as always was a handful for the opposition defence to contend with, but sometimes it does look like he tries too much.

He is a physical player but wouldn’t it be better for him to stay in position rather than always get involved in the loose scrums?

His kicking from hand was again far from perfect and it was off a missed penalty kick for touch that Leicester were able to sweep from inside their own 22 for their first try to fullback George Pearson.

It was effectively the questionable DHL Stadium playing surface, which has improved since the Bulls game but still carries the legacy of the Moto-cross event that was held here in December, that contributed to the Leicester score, with Feinberg-Mngomezulu failing to effectively field a awkwardly bouncing ball that hit the corner flag before bouncing off him in touch in-goal.

It was from the resulting lineout that Leicester set up the try, which came in the 23rd minute. It took just another three minutes for Leicester to exploit some poor defensive work in the Stormers midfield for their second try and suddenly a game that the Stormers were leading 12-0 saw them facing a two point deficit.

That deficit was cancelled out by a penalty on the stroke of halftime by Feinberg-Mngomezulu, enabling the Stormers to go to the break 15-14 up, but it was more than they deserved after a half where they hardly got out of their territory.


Leicester nearly scored straight after halftime but dropped the ball on the line only for them to drive over from a lineout a few minutes later to make it 21-15.

With the visitors so under-strength that wasn’t in the Stormers’ script but in the 49th minute they did what they did too little of on a day when there was way too much lateral running when after receiving a pass on his ankles from Neethling Fouche, Feinberg-Mngomezulu shimmied through a gap and passed to the impressive lock JD Schickerling who was up in support to send wing Leolin Zas in near the posts.

FORWARDS WORE THEM DOWN

The Stormers had reclaimed a one point lead and it was a lead they never relinquished, but ironically perhaps their most impressive period of the game was the 10 minutes that Feinberg-Mngomezulu was off after being yellow carded for leading with his elbow in a carry near the Leicester line.

It was almost as if the Stormers, knowing they were down to 14 men, dug deep and became more pragmatic.

It was during that period that Schickerling surged through to score a spectacular individualistic try to effectively settle the game, although the visitors did bring it back to a one score game with a charge-down try when the rain was falling with eight minutes to go.

Ultimately it could be said that the Stormers repeated what they did agains the Bulls two weeks ago - they gained the physical and forward ascendancy later in the game and once that switch had been flicked they never looked like losing even though they did let Leicester back in with that charge-down try.

Scrumhalf Imad Khan had come on as a replacement and he kicked a penalty and a conversion and then added a try of his own, converted by the returned Feinberg-Mngomezulu, to stretch the end winning margin to 13.

DHL STORMERS 39 - Tries: Jonathan Roche, Andre-Hugo Venter, Leolin Zas, JD Schickerling and Imad Khan; Conversions: Sacha Feinberg-Mngomezulu 3 and Imad Kahn; Penalties: Sacha Feinberg-Mngomezulu and Imad Kahn.

LEICESTER TIGERS 26 - Tries: George Pearson, Will Wand, Jamie Blamire and Tom Manz; Conversions: Billy Searle 3.

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