Saturday’s United Rugby Championship showdown between the Bulls and Stormers was originally scheduled for December 26 at Loftus in Pretoria. But sanity prevailed and both clubs agreed that, if anything, December 26 should be a day spent taking back gifts or in recovery from Christmas lunch. So they rescheduled the first of two match-ups and only played the Cape Town fixture on January 3.
If that match is the barometer for Saturday, then sit tight and don’t move because it is going to be brutal. The scores were level at eight-all after 78 minutes before the Stormers scored a maul try to triumph 13-8.
The pace of play at Loftus in Pretoria is always express when compared with Cape Town’s sea-level comforts.
The tempo is inevitably slower in Cape Town matches, breathing is easier, and when these two giants of South African rugby meet in the north v south derby it can turn into the most compelling of arm-wrestles, where extravagance takes a back seat to set-piece simplicity.
Ball-in-hand, all-out attack is put on hold for field-position dominance through line kicking and aerial kicking assaults from the halfbacks onto the back three.
This is brother v brother in South African rugby terms and that is reason enough to be at Loftus.
The thin air in Pretoria is seductive for many a visiting team in the first quarter. Everything is fast and furious. Players even seem to run faster. But, give it 60 minutes, and the altitude starts sucking all enthusiasm out of the lungs.
Both these teams like to play with pace and use the width in their attack, though on occasions they play with too much width and play laterally.
Each has the ability to be very good, courtesy of their halfbacks. The Bulls this season have profited from scrumhalf Embrose Papier’s form and the pedigree of back-to-back World Cup-winning flyhalf Handre Pollard.
The Stormers have relied on Springbok Sacha Feinberg-Mngomezulu and Jurie Matthee to manage the flow of attack, as No 10s. Both are very different, but both have contributed positively to the Stormers en route to eight successive league wins.
Since then it has been a difficult two months for the Stormers. They lost both matches to the Sharks, home and away, and were beaten a fortnight ago in Johannesburg by the Lions, whose win secured the South African Shield.
The Lions won four of their six South African derby matches, the Sharks won three, the Stormers have two wins from five, and the Bulls have two wins from five.
The South African Shield has proven the most demanding for the Stormers in the league, while the Bulls have found form and a change of fortunes in their last two derby matches, with a crushing win against the Lions at Ellis Park and, most recently, a convincing dismantling of the Sharks at Loftus.
Form says the Bulls will win, recent URC history says the Stormers have won more than they have lost at Loftus. But this is a derby and the only thing guaranteed is that the 20-plus Springboks on display will treat each other with rugby disdain for 80 minutes and then enjoy ice-cold beers in each other’s company on the final whistle.
This is brother v brother in South African rugby terms and that is reason enough to be at Loftus.
The Bulls have so much depth in the 23 and in Pollard they have the biggest clutch goal-kicker in the sport and individual game-breakers in wingers Kurt-Lee Arendse and utility back Canan Moodie.
Their pack is led by tighthead Wilco Louw and loosehead Gerhard Steenekamp with Boks options at hooker, whoever starts or finishes. Then there is lock Ruan Nortjé and a back five in which all have played for the Boks.
Springboks flanker Marco van Staden will play his 100th match against rising South Africa star Paul de Villiers and potentially the veteran Deon Fourie.
The Stormers have Neethling Fouche at tighthead, Evan Roos and BJ Dixon in the loose-forwards and Feinberg-Mngomezulu and Damian Willemse in the backs. These Boks all attended the recent national alignment camp.
The quality of player on show is befitting an exhibition game.
In the Keo & Zels Rugby Podcast I predicted a Stormers win based only on a hunch about the visitors’ desperation after losing their last three matches, not on any rugby analysis.
When it comes to this derby, rip up the form book, ignore individual player pedigrees, and know there can be no certainty previewing a clash between these two clubs.
The Stormers, currently fifth in the league, can climb to second with a bonus point win. The Bulls, eighth, can move above the Lions into seventh with a win. Defeat for the Bulls won’t alter their league position, but defeat for the Stormers, and an Ulster victory against Edinburgh, could see the Stormers drop to sixth.
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