Glasgow Warriors could hold the key to the DHL Stormers repeating last season’s second position on the final Vodacom United Rugby Championship log when the competition resumes after a three-week hiatus.
When the Stormers travelled to Glasgow in January, the defending champions had a significant lead in both the battle for the SA Shield and in the race for a top-two finish.
However, it didn’t turn out like coach John Dobson and his team were hoping, and Glasgow won a thrilling game at the Scotstoun Stadium. Under former Springbok assistant coach Franco Smith, the Warriors are fast emerging as a serious threat to South Africa’s hopes of having two teams in the top four.
But now that there are only five games to play in the league phase, the Stormers can probably feel they need worry less about the Warriors when it comes to log position, and can benefit from the Scots knocking over Ulster when the men from Belfast visit Glasgow at the start of the next round.
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A week after Ulster face Glasgow, they go to Durban to play the rescheduled fixture against the Sharks, while Glasgow go to Johannesburg to play the Lions the same day. Both these matches were postponed due to illness in the visiting camps in October.
It was Ulster who joined Glasgow in taking out some of the wind that had been pumped into the Stormers’ sails with their two derby wins in Cape Town over the festive period. The men from Northern Ireland beat an admittedly depleted Stormers team by 35-5 following the Champions Cup game that was sandwiched in between that and the Glasgow clash.
That five-point swing against the Stormers was huge in the tussle for second place behind rampant Leinster, but the Stormers in turn smashed the Sharks in their away derby two weeks’ ago to restore a bit of their advantage.
And with so few games left, they will be sitting pretty again if Glasgow beat Ulster at Scotstoun on Friday, and the Sharks get up against Ulster at Kings Park eight days later.
In effect then, two of the most recent Stormers opponents will be relied upon by Dobson and his players to do the business against Ulster.
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Should the Warriors win it could even ease some of the pressure on the Stormers as they go into their big derby match against the Bulls in Pretoria on Saturday (5.05pm). With a 10-point lead over last year’s runners up in the SA Shield, and seven over Ulster overall, they’d still have some breathing space if they lose at Loftus Versfeld.
Conversely, an Ulster win will pile the pressure on the Cape side, as their current advantage on Ulster is with a game in hand.
If Ulster win on Friday and the Stormers lose in Pretoria, the gap could be reduced to two points, with Ulster still having a game in hand – against the Sharks in Durban the following week, hence its potential importance to the DHL Stormers.
Another big game when the URC resumes is Edinburgh’s visit to Scarlets on Saturday evening, which could become significant if the Sharks lose their derby against the Lions earlier on the same day (3pm) and therefore make themselves vulnerable to the Scottish team in the battle for top-eight places, and therefore playoff spots.
Currently, Edinburgh are two points behind the eighth-placed Sharks, albeit that the Durbanites have a game in hand.
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