Moerat proud of Stormers buy-in after surge into URC knockouts

Stormers captain Salmaan Moerat was proud of the effort and buy-in from the whole team after a late season surge saw them power up the log and into the United Rugby Championship (URC) playoffs in terrific form.

Back in February, after a disappointing 30-23 loss against the Lions at Ellis Park, it left the Stormers languishing at 10^th on the log, with just four wins from 11 games, outside of the playoff places and well off their goal of finishing in the top four.

At that stage Director of Rugby John Dobson was still very bullish of making the knockouts, but conceded that they had likely left themselves with too much to do down the back straight to earn a home playoff.

And so it proved as the Stormers produced a fantastic finish to the URC pool phase, winning six out of seven games to power their way to fifth place, comfortably making the playoffs, but finishing four points behind fourth placed Glasgow Warriors, who they now have to travel to for their quarterfinal.

The Stormers resurgence started with away wins over the Bulls and Scarlets, before a first half red card to Neethling Fouche contributed to them slipping to a 38-34 defeat against Ulster in Belfast.

However that turned out to just be a blip on their radar as they returned home for a four game finishing run and promptly picked up bonus point wins over Connacht, Benetton, Dragons and Cardiff to finish their pool phase with a flourish.

Cardiff win

After their 34-24 win over Cardiff this past Friday night, Moerat espoused his admiration of the team, and admitted that the Welsh visitors had given them a run for their money, especially in a tight first half.

“A couple of games ago we knew the tough road ahead. So I am extremely proud of the group, not just the playing squad, for buying into everything and wanting to achieve this,” said Moerat.

“It was extremely tough (against Cardiff). We knew it was going to be a Test match. They came out all guns blazing and put us under a lot of pressure in that first half, so a lot of credit needs to go to them.

“In the second half I think we did really well to absorb the pressure and pull the trigger when we really needed to.”

Although it was likely their last home match of the season, Moerat claimed that finishing in the top five gave his side a slight chance of playing in front of their brilliant fans at the Cape Town Stadium again, if there are a few upsets in the quarterfinals.

“They (the supporters) have been unbelievable all season. We are really grateful for their support and will do our best to make them proud on the road, and who knows, life works in funny ways and hopefully a couple of fixtures go our way,” said Moerat.