When captain Salmaan Moerat was forced to leave the Scotstoun Stadium pitch to have a concussion test and then never returned, DHL Stormers coach John Dobson realised the plan to finally end their losing streak against Glasgow Warriors went down the drain.
For a second season in a row the Stormers fell to the Warriors at the quarterfinal stage of the United Rugby Championship. Only this time around, how his side capitulated in their 36-18 defeat felt much worse than last season.
Four, missed kicks by Manie Libbok saw the Cape side lose their grip on the 2024 quarterfinal tussle as the Warriors capitalised with a strong finish.
No Manie To Blame
But in this latest loss no fingers could be pointed to Libbok, who is departing the Cape side at the end of the season for a lucrative contract with Japanese outfit the Kintetsu Liners.
The blame for this loss sadly falls at the feet of Dobson and his coaching side for going with the decision of six forwards on the bench and Libbok and scrumhalf Herchel Jantjies as the only backline replacements.
And as Moerat departed the field and failed his concussion test, the second major blow was then struck when vice-captain and inside centre Dan du Plessis also limped off clutching his shoulder.
Warriors Smelled Blood
The Warriors smelled blood and tore apart the Stormers' defence with blockbusting Scottish international Sione Tuipulotu slicing through a dismantled midfield as outside centre Suleiman Hartzenberg later on also left the field with an injury.
Meanwhile, at flyhalf, wonderkid Sacha Feinberg-Mngomezulu (SFM) had a day to forget as he could not get the Stormers backline going. Only when Libbok was brought on as injury replacement for Du Plessis, did the Cape side managed to pull off one stunning backline move for winger Seabeloa Senatla’s second try of the game after scoring his first in opportunistic fashion, pouncing on a high ball to score under the sticks, in the first half.
Stormers Unravel
But with SFM and Libbok on the field it looked as if no one told either of them who should take charge at 10 as every attack the Cape side launched seemed to unravel into handling errors or turnovers.
Yes, there was some questionable refereeing calls that would have frustrated the Stormers, but by Dobson’s own admission, when asked about his team’s performance, it was probably their worst game of the entire 2024/25 season.
I could not sit in the change room and complain about the effort from after that last [Glasgow] try, that las half an hour we played in their 22 we just played very poorly and they put us under a lot of pressure.
Physically [Glasgow] defended really well, we weren’t getting any denting or any yards in our carries. I don’t think our fight was absent, I think a plethora of mistakes and massive credit to Glasgow for their defence. And their ability to play with ball in hand.
We knew if we were going to kick inaccurately tonight as we did, with their attack, they punished us. We kept our worst performance, probably in a couple of years, for a knockout game which is very disappointing.
Disruptive Injuries
And with Moerat gone early Dobson says it totally disrupted his team’s lineouts as they could not win enough clean ball to launch attacks from.
It was disruptive. Salmaan was very important to what we had planned, and so was [Dan]. They were both within half an hour of the game.
The last time we came here I thought we were hard done by in certain areas, but it was an excellent refereeing performance and a really good Glasgow performance. Not much beyond that. It was tough to lose Dan, especially because there was an early reshuffle that we ended up making, and I was asked ahead of the game about the risk of picking a 6-2 split, and there it was with Herchel ending up playing on the wing at the end.
Sad Farewell For Stormers Stalwarts
According to Dobson, the loss cuts deep as this was not the way they wanted to say farewell to departing players like Joseph Dweba, Libbok, Ben Loader, Paul de Wet and Jantjies, among others.
Dobson explained how it is going to be really tough to say goodbye to the departing members:
It is sitting pretty tough in the throat, not emotionally, but we did not think that we were not going to play next week. That was our plan. Paul de Wet was with us from URC one, and obviously, he was not on the field tonight. Joe [Dweba], Manie and Hersch have been big players for us and not the way we wanted them to fade out into the night. Dave Ewers did not get on the field. We will have a little chat now when we get back to the hotel because our change room is so sad now.
It’s like an American Civil War tent, and the guys are really distraught, and it is not the way I want to say goodbye to these guys.
