CAPE TOWN, SOUTH AFRICA - JANUARY 24: JJ Kotze during the United Rugby Championship match between DHL Stormers and Hollywoodbets Sharks at DHL Stadium on January 24, 2026 in Cape Town, South Africa. (Photo by Cole Cruickshank/Gallo Images)
The Stormers are bitterly disappointed with what Director of Rugby John Dobson referred to as their worst performance of the season, when they crashed to a 30-19 defeat to the Sharks in their United Rugby Championship (URC) coastal derby in Cape Town on Saturday.
The Stormers were heavy favourites heading into the game, after winning all eight of their URC matches until this last weekend, with them top of the log, while the Sharks had never won a URC match in Cape Town before and were languishing down in 13th.
But the Durban side stunned a full house of over 52,000 fans, as they took an early fourth minute lead and never gave it up, as the Stormers fell to their first loss of the competition, and just second loss all season to go with 11 wins.
The defeat has seen the Stormers slip to second on the URC log, three points behind Glasgow Warriors, but they do have a game in hand over the Scottish side, which makes the return clash against the Sharks in Durban this coming weekend all the more important.
“I’ll tell you what feels horrible. The people of Cape Town have come out and we produced comfortably our worst performance of the season and it wasn’t even a thriller at the end,” said a disappointed Dobson after the match.
“From that point of view (the loss) feels terrible. But we’ve got a plan for next week which we’d already made before this result and we’ll be better.”
Set piece dominance
The Sharks were powered by a brilliant set piece performance, as they dominated the scrums, lineouts and mauled the Stormers off their feet, which are all usually massive areas of strength for the Cape side.
The Stormers were also ill-disciplined, conceding 15 penalties and seeing two players yellow carded, while they also weren’t clinical enough in the Sharks 22m.
“On both sides of the lineout, we were poor. Not converting our 22 metre entries and our discipline also cost us. I don’t mind (conceding penalties), but foul play penalties like tackling a man in the air or whatever we did, those are frustrating,” explained Dobson.
“The silver lining to the dark cloud, I suppose, is that we have the opportunity to travel to Durban to set things right. There is an element that the bogey (of being unbeaten) is off our backs.
“If you looked at the URC stats before this round, we had the top lineout and scrum, and we didn’t put that picture up. However, we will be back next week.”
The Stormers and Sharks will now conclude their coastal derby double header in Durban this coming Saturday and the Cape side will be desperate to bounce back with a win, while the Durbanites will want to continue their resurgence and keep climbing up the URC table.
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