DHL Stormers come short at Loftus

The DHL Stormers went down 40-22 in a hard-fought Vodacom United Rugby Championship North-South encounter at Loftus Versfeld on Saturday,

The kick-off was delayed by inclement weather and once things got going there was no holding back from either side.

The home side struck first through hooker Johan Grobelaar who scored from a maul and they followed that up with two penalties from Johan Goosen to make it 13-0.

The DHL Stormers got on the scoreboard when wing Ben Loader went over after taking an offload from Dan du Plessis.

Evan Roos scored after a maul and it was 19-15 to the home side at the half-time break.

The DHL Stormers applied huge pressure early in the second half, but were unable to break through and instead it was the home side to score next from a maul after Warrick Gelant had been shown a yellow card for a high tackle.

Canan Moodie added another try soon afterward. but the DHL Stormers never stopped fighting and the replacements made a huge difference, with hooker Andre-Hugo Venter scoring next from a maul.

The Vodacom Bulls had the final say with scrumhalf Embrose Papier scoring an opportunistic try to seal the win for his team.

The scorers:

For DHL Stormers:
Tries: Loader, Roos, Venter
Cons: Libbok 2
Pen: Libbok

For Vodacom Bulls:
Tries: Grobelaar 2, Moodie, Papier
Cons: Goosen 4
Pens: Goosen 4

DHL Stormers: 15 Warrick Gelant, 14 Ben Loader, 13 Dan du Plessis, 12 Damian Willemse, 11 Leolin Zas, 10 Manie Libbok, 9 Herschel Jantjies, 8 Hacjivah Dayimani, 7 Evan Roos, 6 Deon Fourie (captain), 5 Ruben van Heerden, 4 Adre Smith, 3 Neethling Fouche, 2 Joseph Dweba, 1 Sti Sithole.
Replacements: 16 Andre-Hugo Venter, 17 Brok Harris, 18 Sazi Sandi, 19 Salmaan Moerat, 20 Ben-Jason Dixon, 21 Marcel Theunissen, 22 Paul de Wet, 23 Sacha Feinberg-Mngomezulu.