Beaten by the Bulls in their high-stakes Super Rugby meeting at Newlands on Saturday, the Stormers nevertheless managed to inch a little closer to a potentially favourable run of fixtures in the playoffs phase.

Producing their most fluid and urgent rugby in the last few minutes of a nervy, grinding encounter with the gutsy defending champions, Schalk Burger’s men clawed their way to a losing bonus point in a 19-16 reverse, which effectively assured them of victory in the South African conference with one round of matches to go.

Had they not achieved that point, in a match where they never held the lead, then the possibility would still have existed of the Loftus-based outfit pipping them to conference supremacy if they were to beat the Sharks with a “full house” in Pretoria next weekend and the Stormers get nothing out of their date with the Cheetahs in Bloemfontein.

That scenario, albeit unlikely, would see the great north-south rivals end level on 58 log points, and 11 victories each, but the Stormers have a far superior “for and against” which would surely prove decisive.

So third overall is the very worst the Stormers can finish

Click to read the full story @ Sport24 >>