The Stormers had a few nail-biting wins in December over some strong teams – two one-pointers and a six-pointer, to be exact, that all went down to the wire.
The Champions Cup victory over La Rochelle was important in the context of the tournament, and on Saturday, another must-win clash against the Sale Sharks (7.30pm kick-off) awaits at home.
Rugby writer Leighton Koopman looks at five things the Stormers will have to be good at to trump the English Premiership side at the Cape Town Stadium.
Breakdown protection
It’s probably the biggest area they can improve on in their overall game: hitting the breakdowns a little quicker and with more accuracy.
La Rochelle and the Durban-based Sharks upstaged them at the breakdown. Sale will definitely target this area of the Stormers’ game and see it as one of the few vulnerabilities they can exploit. They have the big loose forwards and players with local knowledge to do that.
The breakdowns are the baby of head coach John Dobson, and he will have invested plenty of time in fixing them to ensure the Capetonians don’t struggle again.
Quick breakdown possession is a key aspect of the Stormers’ potent attack, and if their ruck area is under pressure, their attack won’t really function.
Driving and defending mauls
They have been delivering some results, but the Stormers will look for more reward from their rolling mauls, while keeping mauling teams away from their tryline.
The Durban Sharks managed to repel maul after maul by the Cape side late last month, even when flyhalf Manie Libbok kicked the ball into the corners to set up good line-out positions.
And while the Stormers do find their jumpers during the line-out, the execution of their mauls doesn’t bear the fruit it normally does.
But they only need one good game with their rolling mauls to get that weapon going again. Whether it will happen against Sale is a different question.
Rushing on defence
There’s something at the moment not clicking with the Stormers’ rush defence, and how they swarm and smother the attacks of teams around the flyhalf and midfield channel.
The try Sharks wing Werner Kok scored against them in the last match was a bit too easy, and it’s probably something they will have to look at against Sale.
Maybe it can be blamed on the lack of continuity in the midfield due to injuries, but the Stormers should be able to navigate that kind of disruption with few problems.
Transition into attack
Transitioning from defence into that mercurial counter-attacking side that has been running the competition off their feet in dry conditions is not yet happening smoothly for the Cape side.
Passes that go wayward, clever kicks not sticking, and players not yet in sync with each other have been hampering the deadly attack of the 2022 URC champions.
Time and again they show glimpses of getting back to their best on the counter-attack, but things are just not clicking yet. The backline disruptions have been tough as well.
Scoring those elusive tries
They were outscored by the Sharks and managed to only cross the tryline five times in their last three games.
It’s not a try-scoring record that is normally associated with the sharp-shooters in the Stormers backline, and it is a statistic that can’t be overlooked.
They have been denied a couple of tries, especially against the Bulls, which shows they are creating the chances to score. But it is all about using those opportunities, and they will be first to admit that they have been leaving far too many five-point chances out on the field.