Jake White’s impeccable record at Loftus Versfeld is in shambles, after the Stormers against all expectations beat the Bulls 30-26 in a United Rugby Championship (URC) match on Saturday night.

The only other time the Bulls lost a game at Loftus since White’s arrival in Pretoria, was when Western Province beat a very weakened Blue Bulls side at the start of last season’s Currie Cup campaign, but White was not directly involved with that team.

Very few rugby experts, however, would have given John Dobson’s men any chance of beating the Bulls before the start of Saturday’s game. However, the Capetonians had an excellent game plan that centred around two important aspects of the game.

First, the visitors targeted the tight facets – especially the scrums – to build momentum. Their plan got a boost when, after just ten minutes, the Bulls lost their tighthead prop. Mornay Smit had to leave the field with an ankle injury. After that, the red lights started flashing fiercely.

For Dobson, his game plan worked brilliantly. With the Bulls struggling at scrum time, the Stormers also targeted the breakdown, where Deon Fourie taught the home team an expensive lesson about the value of a very good fetcher.

Fourie terrorized the Bulls at the breakdowns and thus disturbed the home team’s momentum, especially in the first half. This prevented them from finding any decent rhythm.

The Stormers on the other hand were able to score two easy tries when Manie Libbok used the dominance of his forwards at that stage to attack with the boot. He managed to find space behind the Bulls’ backline and with clever grubber kicks he created opportunities for the visitors’ Blitzbok on left wing, Seabelo Senatla, to score twice.

However, the Bulls showed character and started their comeback with the score on 18-0 in favour of the Stormers shortly before half-time. More than a minute after the halftime hooter, Johan Grobbelaar rounded off a lineout move for a score of 7-18 in the Stormers’ favour when the two teams disappeared in the tunnel.

White sent on  his experienced men like Morné Steyn, Marcell Coetzee and Lizo Gquboka immediately after half time and it was especially the 37-year-old Steyn who showed his class and experience again, while Coetzee tamed the Capetonians with his robust play on offense as well as defence.

Steyn’s clever play helped the Bulls scored two tries within five minutes and suddenly they were leaders on the scoreboard.

However, a couple of errors of judgment and a missed chance to score a fifth try by the home team, as well as a ‘never say die’ effort by the Stormers made the visitors succeed in scoring the winning try in the dying moments of the game after a very slack defence by the Bulls.

Final score 26-30 in favour of the Stormers, while the Bulls were brought back to earth after a period in which they dominated the Capetonians for a long time in all competitions.

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