Upheaval in the standings after in-form Sharks and Lions upended

The Bulls and the Stormers caused upheaval in the United Rugby Championship standings at the weekend as the big winners on the first derby day of the competition.

The Jukskei derby saw the Bulls dominate the physical exchanges and use the clinical finishing of their backs to overwhelm the previously unbeaten Lions 57-15 at Loftus Versfeld.

At Cape Town Stadium, the Sharks also arrived without a loss but were beaten 39-22 by the Stormers.

The results meant the Sharks (10 points) dropped from top of the log to fifth and the Lions (nine) sank from third to seventh. The Bulls and Stormers both have 11 points and are in third and fourth place respectively.

The much-anticipated scrum battle was firmly in the Stormers’ favour, with Wilco Louw, surely the best scrummager in the world, and Ntuthuko Mchunu getting the better of Ox Nché and Thomas du Toit. Replacements Neethling Fouche and Vernon Matongo maintained the dominance.

“I didn’t expect we would get five or six scrum penalties, especially if you look at the Sharks’ personnel,” Stormers coach John Dobson said.

“But that’s a nice reminder of the beauty of rugby. It’s a collective effort and it’s a team thing the way our back-five brought it as well. Well done to [scrum coach] Brok Harris and the forwards.

“It was a pretty compelling performance from us and I never thought we were in trouble. I thought physically and defensively we stood up. On attack we had a bit of a flow, which we didn’t have on tour.”

Sharks coach JP Pietersen bemoaned injuries to flyhalf Vusi Moyo and lock Eben Etzebeth, both key drivers of their game, in the first half, followed by two yellow cards.

“We lost those players when it was 8-8, we then had a scrum on our own ball, had a penalty against us, the Stormers kicked into the corner and scored,” he said.

“The yellow cards put us under huge pressure and it was a tough ask defending with 13 men against a very strong team.”

Bulls coach Johan Ackermann was delighted the seven Springboks he brought back into the team gelled so well. The former Springbok lock said emails detailing their coaching vision helped those players prepare for their assimilation.

“The coaches put a lot of effort into sending them stuff on Monday and then on Tuesday they had meetings with them separately to bring them up to speed. They learned everything quickly and on Wednesday we had a day off, and on Thursday we trained.

“It wasn’t perfect, there were mistakes, but you could see they were buying into what we wanted to do and quickly settled in.

“I’m just proud of all the guys. We knew we had to be at our best to beat a side that’s in form. The focus was on starting well and having our set piece sorted out.”