Penalty miss at the death hands Bulls first Cape win over Stormers in the URC

Leighton Koopman

The Stormers just don’t know when to say die when they play the Bulls at the DHL Stadium.

But on Saturday evening, a late missed conversion kick by replacement Clayton Blommetjies dampened the late drama in the North-South derby for the home side as they lost 33-32 to their visitors.

The Bulls, with their scrum on the front foot, made the crucial scores at the start of the game and when the second half kicked off to seal things.

Blommetjies and flyhalf Jurie Matthee missed some regulation kicks in front of goal that should’ve seen the Stormers clinch the match.

It was the visitors, though, that broke their long drought in Cape Town, winning their first-ever match in the United Rugby Championship in the Mother City.

It was also only their second victory over the Stormers in the competition.

The Vodacom Bulls beat the DHL Stormers in a humdinger for their first @Vodacom #URC victory in six attempts in Cape Town - highlights and match report here: https://t.co/e2mHvSWIMy 🫣#HitsDifferent pic.twitter.com/211YCbjUoy

— Springboks (@Springboks) February 9, 2025

"If that last kick had gone over (of Blommetjies), I would've been upset,“ Bulls Director of Rugby Jake White said at his press conference.

“I would've been really unhappy because then we would've found a way to lose the game. Schalk Burger (former Bok) told me afterwards 'Can you try any harder to lose a game'. And we tried to lose that game. But because we won, it's going to be fantastic.

"During tomorrow's video session, we will have to talk about being more composed and controlled."

They won’t worry how the win came, though, as long as they picked up a much-needed five points that bring them within striking distance of second place on the overall URC points table. With a game in hand, they can still overtake the defending champions the Glasgow Warriors.

A standout for the Bulls was eighth man Cameron Hanekom who fought for the full 80 minutes to keep his team going forward every time he took the ball up.

He also defended like a trojan when called upon.

He was on hand assisting with a couple of tries, especially the first one of lock Cobus Wiese.

Replacement Ruan Vermaak scored the winning try in the 70th minute.

Despite the two yellow cards for ill-discipline, the visitors dominated most of the match and were deserved victors.

The Stormers can take heart out of the performance, and although they would’ve wanted a victory, it would always be difficult with a plastered backline and missing most of their starters at the back.

“They were really effective at the breakdown and that hurt us, those scrums in the first half also put them on the front foot,” Dobson said about where they lost it.

"I a very proud of how we fought at the end and we had 22m entries up on entries, but the scrums put us under pressure.

“We also missed those couple of kicks (at goal). Well done to them, but we were very close to winning it.

“If you look at the backline towards the end, we weren't a frontline by a stretch. But, it was a good performance. There were a couple of unlucky moments"

Their scrum woes without Neethling Fouche and some ordinary tackling in the first half put them under pressure. That and the kicking at goal must be addressed.

Five brilliant fighting tries were scored and the five-pointer at the death by Bok Ben-Jason Dixon almost sealed another fightback victory.

But, it wasn’t meant to be for the Cape side and their URC campaign is slowly fading after another tough loss.

Fullback Warrick Gelant was again his attacking superb and created opportunities, assisted captain Salmaan Moerat with his try and scored a peach of a breakaway try after being assisted by other try scorer prop Frans Malherbe.

Points scorers: Stormers 32 (12): Tries: Frans Malherbe, Salmaan Moerat, Evan Roos, Warrick Gelant, Ben-Jason Dixon. Conversions: Jurie Matthee (2). Penalty: Matthee.

Bulls 33 (18): Tries: Cobus Wiese, Jan-Hendrik Wessels, Harold Vorster, Ruan Vermaak. Conversions: David Kriel (2). Penalties: Kriel (3).