CARDIFF RUGBY 22 – 16 STORMERS
Cardiff Rugby are through the BKT United Rugby Championship play-offs after an exceptional performance against the second placed Stormers at a passion-packed Arms Park.
Everything was on the line for the home side, who were missing Mason Grady, Josh Adams, Callum Sheedy, Josh McNally and Alex Mann, yet pushed all negative thoughts to one side to ensure the Stormers once again fell short in the Welsh capital.
It was a time for players to stand tall and none were more impressive than man of the match Taine Basham, his back row colleague Dan Thomas and outside half Ioan Lloyd. Add in the immense work rate, desire and determination of everyone else in the matchday squad and all the ingredients were there for a night to remember.
Coming into the game, Cardiff knew that a win would see them through to the last eight. In the end, their bonus-point triumph moved them up to fourth in the table ahead of Saturday’s matches.
The fear was that they might miss out again, as they did by a single point last year, but even though ninth placed Connacht overtook Ulster with their win in Edinburgh, this time they made the grade. Now they can finish now lower than sixth place.
There was an ominous start to the game as the Stormers used their giant pack to attempt to bully Liam Belcher’s home eight. The home skipper picked up a yellow card in the fourth minute and three minutes later lock Adre Smith powered over from close range for a try that Sacha Feinberg-Mngomezulu converted.
Cardiff found it hard to get their hands on the ball in the opening 10 minutes, but once they earned some possession and got into their rhythm, they became the dominant force. Two tries in the space of five minutes completely rocked the South Africans with Lloyd kicking cross field for Jacob Beetham to score and then Ben Thomas making the running and the space for Tom Bowen to score acrobatically in the opposite corner.
Lloyd converted the Beetham try but Feinberg-Mngomezulu kicked a simple penalty on the half-hour mark to cut the gap. There might have been a third try before the break when Danny Southworth drove over and Irish referee Andrew Brace signaled the score.
Unfortunately, the TMO came in and pointed out a knock on by Ben Thomas in the buildup and that score was ruled out. The pressure was maintained, however, and the excellent Lloyd somehow twisted and turned his way to score in the right corner on the stroke of half time to give Cardiff a 17-10 interval advantage that hardly seemed likely after the opening five minutes.
That try came with Smith in the sin bin for the Stormers and Cardiff went on to lose replacement hooker Dafydd Hughes in added time at the end of the game. By then the result was secure, even though Feinberg-Mngomezulu added a third penalty with the last kick of the match to secure a losing bonus point for his side.
His second came six minutes into the second half to cut the gap to four points, but Beetham’s second try of the match in the clubhouse corner from a superbly executed tap penalty move meant the Stormers had to score twice to win the game.
The tenacious tackling of every player in Blue & Black ensured that was never going to happen and there was even time for head coach Corniel van Zyl to give Leigh Halfpenny a three-minute cameo appearance at the end.
The crowd rose as one to salute a player who had made his Cardiff debut 18 years earlier before going on to win 101 caps for his country and play on three British & Irish Lions tours. That merely tuned a night of celebration into a Cardiff carnival.
Scorers: Cardiff Rugby: Tries: Jacob Beetham 2, Tom Bowen, Ioan Lloyd; Con: Ioan Lloyd. Stormers: Try: Adre Smith; Con: Sacha Feinberg-Mngomezulu; Pens: Sacha Feinberg-Mngomezulu 3.