Cape Town — While he would’ve liked to have seen more ambition on attack, Stormers coach John Dobson hailed the match-winning contributions of Hacjivah Dayimani and Damian Willemse in Saturday’s 19-17 United Rugby Championship victory over the Bulls at Cape Town Stadium.
The close-run triumph means that the Stormers are still the leading South African team on the URC log in fifth position on 47 points — level with Munster, but behind on points difference — and one ahead of the Sharks, who beat the Lions 37-10 on Saturday and moved up to 46, while the Bulls now slump back into eighth on 43.
The Pretoria side actually scored two tries — through Canan Moodie and Elrigh Louw — to Dayimani’s lone effort for the hosts, but the Capetonians stretched the Bulls defence by holding onto possession and operating in wider spaces compared to their opponents.
Bulls coach Jake White stated afterwards that his team had “looked disorganised at times”, and the opposite was true of the Stormers. Their tactical kicking was on point, they harried the opposition into mistakes with their rush defence, successfully stopped their maul and dominated the scrums.
But what Dobson may have been alluding to is that the Cape team didn’t score enough points for their endeavour, which allowed the Bulls to launch a late comeback through Elrigh Louw’s try, which resulted in a tense finish.
Another important stage was just before halftime, where they prevented a try from being scored by holding the Bulls up over the line and were awarded a goal-line drop-out.
“I thought there were patches where we showed our intent. I thought where we were really poor — which is my department — is the attacking breakdown. We gave three penalties away on our ball,” Dobson said.
“There were glimpses of our intent, but it just turned out to be a massive arm-wrestle, and we probably didn’t get what we wanted in terms of flow. But I think there were signs that made me happy.
“(Before halftime) We let their wing come between Ruhan and Rikus — I think they felt Seabelo wasn’t there. Then we go and have a lineout, and lose a lineout. Then we always seem to galvanise quite close to our line! But it was a good effort.
“I mean, that was a massive turnaround — them picking and going at our line, and we getting a goal-line drop-out, which is a tough law, I think — and then we end up scoring on the other side was a massive turnaround.”
But the boisterous crowd roared their approval when Dayimani danced past Bulls flyhalf Chris Smith and then slapped away lock Walt Steenkamp’s tackle to score under the posts, and later with Willemse’s sweetly-struck drop goal.
“He (Dayimani) was outstanding. I think we saw Hacjivah’s (best). Remember that Evan didn’t play in at least two of those local derbies in January, and Hacjivah does a lot of work in terms of physicality and he’s got a powerful story,” the Stormers mentor said.
“I can’t believe he’s 23, so he was outstanding. He brings a lot on attack, but covers ground and unfortunately, he does that (concede a yellow card for a dangerous tackle on Kurt-Lee Arendse) … But no qualms about that.
“I knew how good he (Willemse) was at 12, but with Warrick (Gelant) out, we didn’t have a choice. I thought he was outstanding today. I must be honest with you: we haven’t trained drop goals. So, as it went back to Damian, I said ‘Oh no’ in the coaches’ box!
“Luckily he kicked and straight away put his hand up to (indicate it was going over). He was special today, wasn’t he. Very good.”