Champions Cup result: Stormers survive ill-discipline to smash Bristol Bears

The Stormers survived playing six minutes with 13 men and 24 minutes with a player down, to eventually put the foot down and power their way to an impressive 49-12 bonus point win over Bristol Bears in their Champions Cup opener at the Cape Town Stadium on Saturday afternoon.

Ill-discipline almost cost the Cape team, after hooker JJ Kotze received a first half 20-minute red, and wing Leolin Zas a yellow card in the second, with them overlapping for a period, but a solid defensive performance coupled with a strong finish earned them an easy win in the end.

Bristol did bring a weakened team, with them missing a number of their internationals, so it was imperative that the Stormers walked away with a full house of points, and that they did in style in the end, thanks to a great platform laid by their forwards and finished off by their backs.

Good start

It was a good start to the match for the Stormers as they opened the scoring in the eighth minute, on attack just in the Bristol half some lovely soft hands in midfield put wing Seabelo Senatla into space, and he showed his express pace to round a defender and sprint away for the converted try in the corner.

In the 16th minute from a scrum on the Bristol 5m the Stormers attacked, spreading the ball wide to Senatla, who wonderfully stepped past three defenders before being stopped, but a top offload to his fellow wing Leolin Zas allowed him to dot down the score, converted by flyhalf Sacha Feinberg-Mngomezulu to put them 14-0 up.

That seemed to wake Bristol up and they finally enjoyed a period of dominance, which ended with their first try as they, after a poor clearance from Feinberg-Mngomezulu allowed them to counter-attack and flank Joe Owen was released down touch, smashed through the last defender and scored in the corner in the 23rd minute.

But five minutes later the Stormers got their 14-point lead back, as they attacked from broken play in the Bristol half, fullback Damian Willemse jinxed his way past a few players and then offloaded to inside centre Jonathan Roche to run in a try.

The 34th minute then saw the big flashpoint as Kotze made a head-on-head collision in the tackle, that the refs and TMO decided had a high degree of danger and no mitigation, leading to them handing out the 20-minute red, but the home side managed to reach halftime with no further damage.

Second half

In the second half the Stormers thought they had struck with 14-men when scrumhalf Cobus Reinach snaffled an intercept and ran away to score, but the TMO spotted a high tackle and shoulder to head from Zas just before, which saw the score overturned and the wing sent off.

With them down to 13 Bristol finally struck again, setting up a lineout, securing the ball and mauling, before being stopped, with replacement hooker Sol Moody breaking off and bashing over for the unconverted score to make it 21-12 in the 52nd minute.

But a minute later the hosts stunningly scored with two men down, thanks to a big mistake from the visitors.

A hopeful chip from Feinberg-Mngomezulu was made a mess of by the Bristol players, as they tapped the ball back for no one, allowing Roche to run through, pick up and sprint into the corner to score his second, with the conversion from touch and the end of the 20-minute red boosting them even more.

In the 58th minute the Stormers finally got back to full complement, which led to them dominating the final 20 minutes, with the final 10 then pure carnage as they ran in three late scores.

In the 72nd minute from a scrum on the Bristol 5m the ball was slung to replacement back Warrick Gelant to step through and score, followed a few minutes later by replacement scrumhalf Haashim Pead sniping over from close range which comfortably sealed the bonus point for them.

The cherry was then added to the cake with a few minutes left, as the Stormers attacked, a long skip pass from Feinberg-Mngomezulu put Zas away to run in his second untouched.

Scorers

Stormers: Tries – Seabelo Senatla, Leolin Zas (2), Jonathan Roche (2), Warrick Gelant, Haashim Pead; Conversions – Sacha Feinberg-Mngomezulu (7)

Bristol Bears: Tries – Joe Owen, Sol Moody; Conversion – Sam Worsley