Defence has been a massive talking point in the Vodacom Bulls realm this season, even though it is only four rounds old, but the team management feel they have made enough strides forward to warrant some confidence after their narrow win over Connacht on Friday night.

The team head to Glasgow this weekend, looking for a repeat win against the Warriors and a repeat performance of their defensive effort.

While it would be easy to point out that Connacht scored four tries and got close to the Bulls on the scoreboard in the end, and could have sneaked home had their kicking been better, this Bulls side is still a work in progress, and they had a lot of control for most of the game, despite not having the ball.

Coach Johan Ackermann is on a steep learning curve, especially as his side have had no real pre-season to speak of, no games and a host of injuries to deal with, as well as trying to use their Springboks for the limited time they have them.

236 TACKLES

On Friday night they put together no less than 236 tackles - a monumental effort given this side had shipped 14 tries against them in their previous three games, and saw a defensive stat where 13 of the side made more than 10 tackles - the norm for a good defensive game for any player.

Connacht are - as Ackermann rightly points out - the team that have the most ball in play minutes with them and put together an astounding amount of phases, and yet, the Bulls repelled many of them with ease.

Some of the tries were against the run of play and often a team learns more about winning the hard way away from home. But still, there was bound to be a lot of relief after that game against the Irish team.

Ackermann pronounced himself extremely proud of the effort, and knows that the team need to build on moments like these if they are to be in the fight when the playoffs come around.

“That's the part that I'm very pleased and proud of, is the character that the team showed. That was basically the challenge to the team, to say, we've got a team that is really playing to inspire the supporters and the people they represent. The way we can show that is by putting out a good performance, and especially when we defend, and the guys did that.

NOT PERFECT

“It wasn't perfect. You know, there are still work-ons, individual work-ons, as well as system work-ons. But it's a massive step up, and the players just showed to themselves what they can do.

“I'm proud of every player that went on that field last night, and as well as those individual efforts, just, you know, the back row, the locks, everybody. It's hard to mention everybody individually, but everybody got through a lot of work, and that's the part that I'm proud of.”

Ackermann was also proud of the captaincy of 22-year old Reinhardt Ludwig, who led the team well despite only his second game back from injury.

“Ruan (Nortje) is there, as is Marcel (Coetzee), and there are a lot of senior players. But he led so well in the match. I only worked with him for a few weeks, because he was injured for a large part of the pre-season and only came back from rehab recently. It was a bit more pressure than we wanted, but again it is typical of him and the kind of person he is.

The DHL Stormers top the #VURC log after four rounds of action ⛈️🔝 pic.twitter.com/S7YVK1VXpT

— SuperSport Rugby (@SSRugby) October 20, 2025

“He’s definitely a born leader, talks well to the team, motivates them and is always positive, and he played extremely well as well. So that means a lot, as you said, to show his calmness in a big, tight match. That's what's nice, that there are guys who can solve each other's problems, who can help each other, and support each other. That's great for where we are now, and it's great for his development as captain.

“Because I think he made really good decisions.”

IMPORTANT FOR SELF BELIEF

Ackermann added that the victory, even the way it was achieved, was important for the self-belief of the group and the mood in the squad.

Yeah, I think it's just important for the mood of the group, for the belief that we trust the system, we trust the squad. We made changes, but the players that came in and grabbed the opportunity, they played well.

“So that means there's healthy competition, everybody is understanding what we want to achieve, and we're still growing in the way we want to play. That's great for us as a team, as a group, and it's not going to get easier.

“Glasgow is a world-class team, well-coached and with a host of internationals, so we're obviously going to make a few changes again, but that's what we're going to need this whole season. It's not about one individual or two players, it's about the whole squad, putting up their hands when they get the jersey to play for the team.”

The Bulls will name their side for the clash on Wednesday.

Regardless of what happens in their final week of tour the DHL Stormers will end the first phase of the Vodacom United Rugby Championship in a much better position than they have been at a corresponding stage of any of the previous editions of the competition.

Even in the year they won the competition or the season after that when they were beaten in a Cape Town final by Munster they inhabited the lower reaches of the log in December and were under pressure. With four wins in four starts, and just one missed point when they failed to cross the line for a fourth try against the Ospreys, plus an overwhelmingly superior points differential to the teams around them, the Stormers top the log with one game remaining before the international break.

But while four wins in five games heading into the next phase will be a comfortable position for the Stormers, their director of rugby John Dobson knows only too well just how tough the URC is. The game they play after the international break is away against Munster, who after their win over Leinster at the weekend are arguably the form team in the early rounds of competition, and then after the interlude for the EPCR games in early and mid-December they head into a series of tough derbies.

RIDING THE MOMENTUM IS IMPERATIVE

So, another win while the momentum is with them is imperative, and Dobson is also mindful that his team’s last opponents on tour, Benetton in Treviso on Saturday evening, have also been strong challengers in recent seasons for the finishing log position that he covets. With two defeats in four games so far, a Stormers win at the weekend will hurt the Italian team.

What Dobson is also mindful of is that unlike Parma, where his team won 31-13 and banked another five log points at the weekend, Treviso has not been kind to the Stormers.

“We have a huge battle against Benetton coming up. It is a shootout and really important to us,” said Dobson after his team’s five try triumph against Zebre.

The DHL Stormers make it four wins from four in 2025/26 ✅✅✅✅#SSRugby pic.twitter.com/65vIdELoXS

— SuperSport Rugby (@SSRugby) October 18, 2025

“We haven’t won in Treviso before. More importantly, neither have we actually ever played well in Treviso before. So the challenge will be for us to lift ourselves for a really big battle.”

NEED TO REVERSE TREND OF NARROW LOSSES

The trend has been for the Stormers to suffer really close losses in away games against the top Italian team. In the first ever game between the sides in 2021 the Stormers started off well and then tailed off to be beaten by a narrow margin, while on their last visit to Treviso two seasons ago hooker Joseph Dweba thought he’d scored the winning try near the end only to discover he’d dived over the wrong line. The Stormers lost that game by a solitary point.

Benetton were thrashed by Edinburgh at the weekend, but it was an away game for them and the Stormers, after their experience in Parma, are well aware of how differently the Italian teams treat home games. Zebre had lost the week before they played the Stormers, but the team they sent to the Ospreys was a very different one to the one that played the home game.

“Zebre are a different proposition and a very tricky team to play at home, which is shown by them beating the Lions and Edinburgh in Parma so far this season,” he said.

Indeed, although in the early stages the Stormers looked completely dominant and set to win by a bigger margin than they did, Zebre played with great passion and made the log leaders work really hard for their haul of five log points.

“We will take a five try win. Maybe we were a bit lucky with that intercept try (to skipper Ruhan Nel) at the end but we were held up on the line two or three times too. We weren’t at our clinical best,” said Dobson.

Round 4 brought the drama, the passion and the flair 🔥

Where's your club sitting? 👀@Vodacom #URC pic.twitter.com/gtmgt7VZG8

— Vodacom United Rugby Championship (URC) (@URCOfficial_RSA) October 19, 2025

“It felt like we were a bit flat. Whether that was because of the time we played, because it felt like a really long day building up to the game, or the pressure that Zebre exerted, we just weren’t at our best. We had a strong tempo towards the back end of last season and the start of this season and that maybe impacted us a bit.

“I hate using the term overplayed, but in some ways we probably pushed it a bit. There were times we should have been more direct. They seduced us into seeing space and then they closed it up really well.”

PACK IS GOING WELL

It was a night though where, as Dobson pointed out, the Stormers were over the line a few times only for the ball to be held up, and his forwards continued to dominate all opponents.

“Our lineout and maul is going really well. Yes, we got a couple of penalties, but we felt they came a bit later than in the other first couple of games. So we didn’t have it quite as easily at scrum time (as before) but if you consider we are without Tuks (Ntuthuko Mchunu), Neethling (Fouche), Sazi (Sandi) and Frans (Malherbe), we are doing okay. I thought Zachary Porthen (making his first start) was exceptional.

“So the set piece was nice, where we are on the log is nice, how we defended I thought was really nice. They tried to get on top of us with their contestable kicks, and obviously targeted JC (Mars) in his first URC start (playing as late replacement for the injured Seabelo Senatla) and he handled it well.”

The Stormers coach was undecided towards the end of last week as to whether one or both of his Bok duo of Sacha Feinberg-Mngomezulu and Damian Willemse will be going home to have a short break before they join the Bok tour to the UK, France, Ireland and Italy the week after the Benetton game, but he did confirm the arrival of some additional cavalry.

“Salmaan (Moerat) wasn’t ready to play against Zebre but he is here with us now and will be available to play against Benetton and (new recruit) Cobus Reinach is flying over,” said Dobson.

It was unexpected that two of last year’s top four finishers would be the big losers in the fourth round of the Vodacom United Rugby Championship but in retrospect that Leinster and the Hollywoodbets Sharks both lost home games is not as strange as some may make out.

Perhaps we saw the warning sign the previous week when the Vodacom Bulls, laden for that game with returning Springboks, were outplayed 28-7 by Ulster in Belfast. Handre Pollard was returning to the Bulls after a long absence and had had just a few training sessions with the team. Wilco Louw, Canan Moodie, Marco van Staden, Jan-Hendrik Wessels and others were all getting their first taste of being Bulls since losing last season’s final against Leinster. That was nearly five months ago, and they were also playing under a different coach then.

Unlike their Ulster opponents, a sizable proportion of the Bulls team that played that night had not been together as Bulls in the pre-season and they had not played the pre-season games or the games played in the first two rounds of the competition. So was it a surprise then that Ulster won because they looked the more organised team?

Bulls coach Johan Ackermann is still arguably facing a challenge in re-absorbing his Boks. The Pretoria team conspired against themselves and really should have put Connacht away earlier in the Galway game this past Friday night, but in the end they had to survive two last gasp conversion attempts (the referee ordered a retake) to win by one point.

TEAMS MOULDED IN PRE-SEASON ARE PERFORMING

The team that conquered the Bulls in round three travelled to Durban in a confident mood and as a together team that has mostly been together since the start of the pre-season. By contrast half the Sharks team they faced at Hollywoodbets Kings Park arrived home from a three-match tour on Tuesday, while the other half reported for their first Sharks training of the season the next day.

If Sharks coach John Plumtree erred it was probably in disrespecting what rugby is - a team sport. It did work for the Sharks last year when they faced Glasgow Warriors in the Boks’ first game back, but unless you are the Barbarians, and the result doesn’t matter, bringing a team together three days before the game is high risk. Particularly when you are playing against a team on the rise again and that has had far more disruptions and therefore greater continuity in selection.

There was a lot wrong with the Sharks game at the weekend, both on attack and defence, but it is their lack of attacking shape that was highlighted. And rightly so, because it is a problem carried over from last season. But when do you work on attacking shape? Every coach will tell you that is something you do in the pre-season. When do the Sharks have a pre-season? They don’t, at least not one with their Boks present.

NOT EVEN A WASHUP FOR SHARKS AT END OF LAST SEASON

Plumtree didn’t even have a wash-up session with his players, which is normal practice at the end of a season, when they bowed out of last year’s URC by losing to the Bulls in the Pretoria semifinal. The Boks had to report to the national camp the day after the game, and the Sharks coach did not see them again until last Wednesday’s training session.

The disappointment in the Sharks’ performance against Ulster from Sharks supporters is justified. Like Liverpool are experiencing now, when you have big name players on your books expectation is raised. But like the Liverpool bosses are probably now realising after a third successive defeat in the Premier League, a bedding in period is also necessary. Big names don’t just come together and automatically gel.

And comparing what Plumtree is going through to what Arne Slot with Liverpool in a different sport isn’t even comparing apples with apples if you consider that in the round ball league in England the managers do work with their top players during the pre-season.

Round 4 brought the drama, the passion and the flair 🔥

Where's your club sitting? 👀#BKTURC #URC pic.twitter.com/WJgjFFl4nF

— BKT United Rugby Championship (URC) (@URCOfficial) October 19, 2025

Plumtree said in his first season back at the Sharks that he had discovered that being a coach of a local URC team was the toughest rugby coaching job in the world. And it is if you are coaching a team loaded with Boks. Jake White discovered that quite quickly when he took the Bulls into the URC and it was one of the reasons why he initially didn’t contract many current Boks.

He did start bringing in more Boks later on and the team his successor, Johan Ackermann, is in charge of now has been built by White. Ackermann hadn’t coached in the URC before this season but the Ulster game was doubtlessly a wake-up call for him. Next time he has a phalanx of Boks coming back all at once he might select his team differently.

CULLEN’S LEINSTER STRUGGLING WITH SAME PROBLEM

By contrast to Ackermann, the Leinster chief honcho Leo Cullen is a URC veteran, and yet even he has struggled with what for Leinster was the fairly rare challenge of having to go through a pre-season without top players. The Irish province provided 13 members of the British and Irish Lions squad that toured Australia in the off-season, and that was the context to his team’s poor start to the competition in South Africa.

Now that he’s got the Lions available again Cullen has discovered it is hard for that to happen in seamless fashion, as shown when his team was well beaten by a far more together, and less Lions or international absentee impacted, rival in Munster at Croke Park. Like Ulster, and also like another team that is surging early in this competition, the DHL Stormers, Munster would have had most of the players on duty for them now working with them in the pre-season.

So maybe it is no surprise that those three teams have been the most impressive thus far, and inhabit the upper reaches of the log, while Leinster, so dominant last season, sit with just one win in four starts, and the Sharks, who finished third in the URC last season, sit with just one draw in four starts.

LOG MAKES INTERESTING READING

A glance at the log will confirm at this early stage that the Irish teams outside of Leinster are on the up, and that, because they are not alone in being rated teams that have failed to get going thus far, there’s no reason for either of Leinster and the Sharks to tip themselves into a crisis at this point.

The log can easily be divided as it is currently into two separate sections - there’s the teams that have won all their games or dropped just one, which apart from the Stormers, Munster, Ulster (who have played one game less), Cardiff and the Bulls also includes what is becoming a rampant Glasgow Warriors, and then the rest are lumped together with one or no wins.

The DHL Stormers make it four wins from four in 2025/26 ✅✅✅✅#SSRugby pic.twitter.com/65vIdELoXS

— SuperSport Rugby (@SSRugby) October 18, 2025

For those in the bottom half the pressure will be intense to win their next games and again when the competition resumes at the end of November after the international break. The URC is a tough competition, as confirmed by the interesting anomaly of six of this past weekend’s eight games all having been won by the visiting team.


Fourth round URC results

Dragons 17 Cardiff Rugby 24

Edinburgh 43 Benetton 0

Connacht 27 Vodacom Bulls 28

Emirates Lions 29 Scarlets 18

Ospreys 17 Glasgow Warriors 42

Hollywoodbets Sharks 26 Ulster 34

Leinster 14 Munster 31

Zebre 13 DHL Stormers 31

Thanks to another powerful performance from the forwards and the brilliance of Sacha Feinberg-Mngomezulu at the back the DHL Stormers made it four out of four wins so far in their Vodacom United Rugby Championship campaign as they beat Zebre 31-13 in Parma on Saturday night.

It was the third time in four games that the Stormers managed to add the four-try bonus point to the match points, so the Cape Town team were able to retain their position at the top of the log after the fourth round.

Five tries and five points in Parma to make it four from four this season. #ZEBvSTO #inittogether @Vodacom #URC pic.twitter.com/Xw0wYRvgta

— DHL Stormers (@THESTORMERS) October 18, 2025

They have the same number of points, 19, as Munster, but have a vastly superior points differential to the team that upset Leinster earlier in the day.

The Stormers win was never really in doubt from the moment they were able to recover from a mistake from the kick-off that gave Zebre an early opportunity and transfer play back to the other side of the field, where another of what is now becoming the customary impressive Stormers driving mauls sent flanker Paul de Villiers in for his third try of the season.

The lineout was set up from a scrum penalty, and the Stormers’ complete dominance of the scrums was also nothing new.

Indeed, so superior were the Stormers, who had No 8 Evan Roos in barnstorming form again en route to yet another Man of the Match award, that it would not have been a misrepresentation of how the game went had the visitors reached 50 points.

A second straight @Vodacom #URC Man of the Match performance on tour for Evan Roos. #ZEBvSTO #inittogether pic.twitter.com/yRnfbpUIvG

— DHL Stormers (@THESTORMERS) October 18, 2025

Several times in the first half they were over the line only to be held up, and then Ruben van Heerden appeared to power his way over shortly after the break only for referee Andrew Brace and the television match officials to be unable to find conclusive evidence that it had been dotted down.

SACHA'S WIZARDRY

Feinberg-Mngomezulu came close to scoring not long after the De Villiers try and the Stormers were completely dominant in the first quarter, so it came as a bit of a surprise when a long pass from Warrick Gelant, playing his first game of the season at fullback, was intercepted by Zebre wing Mirko Belloni and he ran through to score.

Feinberg-Mngomezulu had missed the conversion of De Villiers’s try so when Giacomo De Rea converted Belloni’s effort it meant that Zebre took a 7-5 lead.

And to their credit, the hosts did make it really hard for the Stormers to convert their dominance and were tigerish on defence, in their attempts to spoil, throughout the 80 minutes.

It looked like Zebre might even hold onto their narrow lead until halftime as the Stormers kept getting near and yet so far, such as when lock Adre Smith was held up over the line.

However, it was soon Sacha time, as a high kick was spilt and Feinberg-Mngomezulu came through to pick it up and weave over to score between the posts.

SFM 🪄🪄

The DHL Stormers and Sacha score their second 👇

📺 Stream #VURC on DStv: https://t.co/0P0NNhnwKw pic.twitter.com/y4CRKmjZ90

— SuperSport Rugby (@SSRugby) October 18, 2025

He nearly did it again just before the halftime hooter but again it wasn’t to be and the Stormers held a five point lead (12-7) at the halfway point.

The Stormers placed enormous pressure on Zebre at the start of the second half and although Van Heerden’s claims for a try were denied, it was inevitable the dam wall would break at some stage.

When it did it was Feinberg-Mngomezulu again who got the five pointer, this time driving over from close range as the Stormers attacked near the Zebre line.

Feinberg-Mngomezulu didn’t kick the conversion but in the 58th minute his playmaking wizardry was to the fore as he sent Gelant in for the try with a pinpoint long pass.

Willemse ➡️ Feinberg-Mngomezulu ➡️ Gelant

No defence is safe when these three start ballin' 🤩⚡

📺 Stream #VURC on DStv: https://t.co/0P0NNhnwKw pic.twitter.com/yP2uIROJ43

— SuperSport Rugby (@SSRugby) October 18, 2025

This time he converted and at 24-7 with a quarter of the game left, and with Zebre having lost reserve prop Matteo Nocero for 10 minutes to a yellow card, expectations would have been for the score to mount considerably.

However, Zebre never gave up and actually drew six points back with two De Rea penalties to ensure the Stormers remained honest until the end, with captain Ruhan Nel making the gap a more fitting representation of the difference between the teams when he scored an intercept try off the final move of the game.

It was the second win of the three-game tour for the Stormers and they will feel they have hit their target but having got this far they will go all out to make it three out of three when they face Benetton in Treviso in their final tour game next weekend.

When De Rea kicked his first penalty in the 61st minute it was the first successful penalty kick against the Stormers of the season.

Belloni’s intercept try was just the third try scored against the Stormers in four games.

The Stormers team was different to the one announced on Friday as Seabelo Senatla was a last-minute withdrawal and was replaced by young JC Mars on the wing.

Scores

DHL Stormers 31 - Tries: Paul de Villiers, Sacha Feinberg-Mngomezulu 2, Warrick Gelant and Ruhan Nel; Conversions: Sacha Feinberg-Mngomezulu 3.

Zebre 13 - Try: Mirko Belloni; Conversion: Giacomo de Rea; Penalties: Giacomo de Rea 2.

The jubilation of the Ulster players told the story of the magnitude of their triumph as they overcame a marquee laden but disjointed Hollywoodbets Sharks team 34-26 in Durban to record only their third Vodacom United Rugby Championship win on the road in the past year.

What made the Ulster win so impressive was that it was achieved against a Sharks team that had their star Springboks, with the exception of the still injured Aphelele Fassi, back in tow.

By contrast with the Sharks, Ulster didn’t have nearly as many international or decorated star players.

They were though the far more organised team in the first half an hour, which was effectively when they won the match, and there’s good reason for that - they have played together over three rounds and had a proper pre-season together.

A strong showing from @UlsterRugby 🔴⚪

Great skill and collective effort on display from the men in white and red 🙌

📺 Watch every VURC match live on SuperSport 🏉@Vodacom #URC | #SHAvULS pic.twitter.com/O3PAghYq31

— Vodacom United Rugby Championship (URC) (@URCOfficial_RSA) October 18, 2025

The Sharks by contrast might have actually paid for having too many Boks - certainly in terms of them all returning at once for while they may have seen each other at the Boks they came into this game without any pre-season.

The same thing happened to the Vodacom Bulls against exactly these same opponents in Belfast last week - Johan Ackermann also had several star current Boks back in his team and they lost 28-7 on a night where the Bulls just didn’t gel as a team.

LOOKED LIKE A TEAM THAT HASN’T PLAYED TOGETHER

It was a similar story at Hollywoodbets Kings Park, with the Sharks looking like what they were in an opening quarter where they conceded 17 points - a team that hasn’t played together since June, when they lost the 2024/2025 semifinal to the Bulls in Pretoria.

The Sharks dominated the scrums, and let it be said that referee Ben Whitehouse should have shown Ulster a yellow card far sooner than he did and should also have followed up with a second when, a minute after the first, Ulster produced the cynical infringement that saw the referee award the Sharks a penalty try.

By then the Sharks had been down to 13 men themselves due to two poor disciplinary indiscretions that saw first Vincent Koch yellow carded and then minutes later Makazole Mapimpi.

Both were for taking an opposition player through the horizontal in the tackle, but Koch’s was mitigated by him putting the Ulster player down gently once he knew what he was doing.

So his card stayed yellow, but Mapimpi’s was upgraded to a red, which meant the Sharks were down to 14 men until there were just four minutes left.

The Sharks had been coming back into the game when the cards were shown so it was costly, and that was why it was a bit of a horror show evening for them.

FOURTH ULSTER TRY WAS CONTROVERSIAL DECISION

Indeed, there was more, for it was hard to fathom how Whitehouse stuck with his onfield decision when the replay clearly showed Ulster prop Callum Reid appearing to ground the ball short of the line for Ulster’s fourth try.

But that the Sharks were in position to concede that try in the first place summed up their night, for there was a pattern that was repeated throughout the game of the Sharks scoring points and then giving it away with soft moments and conceding points in return.

This time it was a penalty conceded at the restart, with the Ulster lead having been cut to eight points due to the penalty try, that set Ulster up in the attacking position from which they launched the attack that netted the try that took their lead back to 15 points.

Andre Esterhuizen did score a good try off a tap penalty with eight minutes to go to cut the deficit back to eight, but the Sharks’ attacking game just wasn’t synched enough for them to come back and win the game.

ERRORS AND LACK OF ATTACKING SHAPE

While Ulster were efficient and clinical even though they were smashed in the scrums, and at one stage were conceding a penalty every time a scrum was set, the Sharks were error-ridden, which was symptomatic of a team that had not played together and which was only fully reintroduced to each other on Wednesday of this week.

There were also though symptoms of one of last year’s problems, which was lack of attacking shape, and it is difficult to equate the Siya Masuku we saw in this game with the one that lined up so close to the gainline and was such a revelation when he first replaced Curwin Bosch two years ago.

The Sharks simply played way too much behind the gain line, and given their advantage at forward, should really have made the decision to just keep the ball under a forward blanket and not try to engage the backs too often given the damp conditions and also the fact that there wasn’t much synching happening at the back.

That said, the Sharks made a noose for themselves when they conceded a try to fullback Mike Lowry after just five minutes before Ulster added a penalty from Nathan Doak and then an excellent try from their slippery former Sharks wing Werner Kok to make it 17-0 to the visitors.

That meant the Durban team had to play catch-up for two thirds of the game and instead of the calmness you might have expected from a team so loaded with stars they were frenetic and made mistakes.

The Sharks were awarded 17 penalties against seven and really should have got more out of the game than the bonus point they netted for scoring four tries.

They head into next Saturday’s fifth round game against Scarlets still looking for their first win in the competition.

SCORES

Ulster 34 - Tries: Mike Lowry, Werner Kok, Tom Stewart and Callum Reid; Conversions: Nathan Doak 4; Penalties: Nathan Doak 2.

Hollywoodbets Sharks 26 - Tries: Siya Kolisi, Makazole Mapimpi and Andre Esterhuizen; Penalty try; Conversions: Siya Masuku and Jordan Hendrikse.

The Lions finally found their winning ways as a late brace of tries by replacement Morne Brandon secured them a workmanlike 29-18 win over the Scarlets in their Vodacom United Rugby Championship match at Ellis Park on Saturday.

Played in consistent rain, the Lions made heavy weather of the win, despite dominating all the stats, having 60 per cent possession all game and forcing the Welsh side to make double the amount of tackles.

While this was by no means a classic, it was a gritty win by a side under pressure, although large parts of the match were a firm reminder that this was team fifteen playing sixteen in a sixteen team competition.

To say that on this performance either of the sides will be worthy of a top eight place may be a bit hopeful, but for the home side it was a welcome respite after three weeks of pressure and poor performances.

Home comforts for the Lions 🏠🏉

They get their first win of the new #VURC season ✅#SSRugby pic.twitter.com/N671lmC0ug

— SuperSport Rugby (@SSRugby) October 18, 2025

SCARLETS ONLY HAD SCRAPS TO PLAY WITH

Their return home couldn’t have found a better opponent than Scarlets, who despite their enthusiasm had little to answer on attack and played with scraps the entire game. The only thing that saved the Welsh side was their breakdown, where they turned over several balls and stunted the Lions' march time and again by beating them there.

In contrast, and despite the scoreline, the Lions looked like a side that were doing the basics well, with their scrum and lineout strong, but their attacking play lacking that nuance needed to score a bunch of tries that would complement their dominance.

Instead it was a nervy performance, one where the attack struggled and the options were difficult to execute, where momentum was often missing and it was only when they were down to 14 men after conceding a penalty try that the Lions looked a lot sharper.

The win will lift some of the pressure on coach Ivan van Rooyen, who will be hoping it is the turnaround the side need ahead of a long arduous campaign that got off to the worst start.

SOME RELIEF AFTER POOR START

Still, one swallow doesn’t make a summer, not even in rainy conditions, but it is a start. The problem is that this same coaching team has not won more than 45 per cent of their games over four and a bit seasons and common sense says that is unlikely to change soon.

Yet none of that will be talked about after the win. The sense of relief was palpable from the players’ reactions at fulltime and will resound through the handful of fans that turned up on a wet Gauteng afternoon to watch the side.

There are so many unanswered questions about this side, but after the win, they will be left for another day.

At one stage the Lions had more than 70 per cent possession and territory, but only led 5-3 at the break in a dour first half that would have put many a rugby fan to sleep. This wasn’t flair at its best, but a tame plodding on.

The only difference was that Scarlets hardly threatened the Lions' line in that period, while the Lions did a circus act of ensuring they did not trouble the scorers too much despite a plethora of possession.

They had a try disallowed after Sam Costelow opened the scoring for Scarlets, but didn’t make a mistake with their second bite at the cherry, with Quan Horn finishing off a wonderful team try that passed through several hands.

JC Pretorius busts his way through 😤💣

Quan Horn finishes off the first Lions try at Ellis Park in 2025/26 🦁🔴

📺 Stream #VURC on DStv: https://t.co/0P0NNhnwKw pic.twitter.com/HPykEY7P7H

— SuperSport Rugby (@SSRugby) October 18, 2025

BETTER SECOND HALF

But that was the sum of their luck when it came to the first half, and the second was a lot better by the Lions as they kept the scoreboard moving through a penalty apiece by Chris Smith and Gianni Lombard, before Franco Marais got them firmly in front by rounding off a well-worked rolling maul try that Scarlets couldn’t stop from rumbling over the line.

The Lions weren’t in control of the scoreboard until Darrien Landsberg stopped a Scarlets maul illegally and collapsed it over the line, earning himself a yellow card for his efforts and costing his side a penalty try in the 69th minute.

Suddenly the Lions sprung into action and Nico Steyn saw a gap from a lineout, burst through and put Brandon over the line without a defender laying a hand on him.

Something off the training ground from the Lions 🤩🔴#SSRugby | #VURC pic.twitter.com/g0g81fCZ3b

— SuperSport Rugby (@SSRugby) October 18, 2025

Four minutes later Brandon went over at the back of the maul to secure the win for the Lions, and even though Joe Roberts scored a late try for the Scarlets, it was never going to be enough.

Lombard had the last say with a penalty on fulltime, ensuring the win and making sure that Scarlets couldn’t sneak in a late bonus point.

SCORERS

Lions - tries: Morne Brandon (2), Quan Horn, Franco Marais. Penalties: Chris Smith, Gianni Lombard (2).

Scarlets - tries: Penalty try, Joe Roberts. Penalties: Sam Costelow (2)

The Vodacom Bulls survived a late rally to earn a hard-fought, if not controversial at times, 28-27 win over Irish side Connacht in their Vodacom United Rugby Championship match in Galway on Friday night.

The Bulls survived two late conversions - referee Mike Adamson allowed Connacht replacement kicker Sean Naughton a second chance after he missed the conversion because of an apparent early charge from the Bulls defenders - but Naughton missed again with a kick that would have probably won them the game.

But that wasn’t the only controversy on a night where the home side used almost every trick in the book to influence the game, but weren’t able to win it at the death.

Johan Ackermann's Vodacom Bulls return to winning ways in the #VURC 🐂⚡#SSRugby pic.twitter.com/BUOHpAcOif

— SuperSport Rugby (@SSRugby) October 17, 2025

Bulls hooker Jan-Hendrik Wessels was accused by Josh Murphy in the 19th minute of grabbing his groin at a ruck, prompting Murphy to lash out and strike Wessels in the face. While television replays showed no evidence of the alleged incident, it was clear that something upset Murphy in the process.

DRAMA WITH 20-MINUTE RED CARD

The problem for Murphy was that without television evidence, the officials could not act, and Wessels, if he did what was alleged, was very lucky indeed to get away with it. With that in mind, the only evidence was Murphy’s blow, which cost him a 20-minute red card and ended his game.

The outrage in the partisan crowd was apparent, and the television director fuelled the anger by replaying any marginal incident that was the fault of the Bulls several times, while ignoring replays of any of Connacht’s indiscretions.

This left a bit of a sour taste and left the game a bit ill-tempered, as Connacht constantly questioned Adamson's every decision.

In the end, though, the Bulls survived the controversy and will point to their supreme defensive effort that won them the game.

After being accused of leaking too many tries, the solid effort on defence was clear to see as they had to make a massive 236 tackles on the night - as opposed to the 104 that Connacht made.

MASSIVE TACKLE STATS

That stat alone talks about the response to the loss to Ulster last weekend, but also the sense of pride within the Bulls camp. Jeandre Rudolph topped those stats with 25 tackles, but Nama Xaba (22) and captain Reinhardt Ludwig (21) were very close behind.

In fact, no less than eight Bulls players made more than a dozen tackles, while 13 made 10 or more, with Cobus Wiese (19), young JJ Theron (19) and Wessels (18) all featuring highly.

That stat was probably what kept Connacht at bay as they had virtually no forward momentum for much of the game, as they ran into a wall of Bulls defenders time and again.

Add to that their soft left flank, which the Bulls exploited for all three of their tries, two of which were scored by scrumhalf Paul de Wet, while all three featured cameos by both Willie le Roux and Sebastian de Klerk.

WILLIE LE ROUX MASTERCLASS

Le Roux’s mastery of drawing defences was clear to see, while De Klerk’s speed on the attack made two of the tries. De Wet linked up superbly with both players to show he is settling down well in the light blue jersey.

Paul de Wet keeps running those support lines 😏

He gets his second of the night 🏉🏉

📺 Stream #VURC on DStv: https://t.co/0P0NNhnwKw#SSRugby pic.twitter.com/jUDZkSLOhG

— SuperSport Rugby (@SSRugby) October 17, 2025

In the end, all of Connacht’s tries came from Bulls' mistakes and credit must go to the home side for striking when they got the chance.

The first try came from a missed lineout throw by Wessels, which ignited a Connacht attack, and after a penalty, flyhalf Josh Ioane went left and found a mismatch with Wilco Louw, getting past his stretched arm to score the opening try.

But the Bulls kicked into motion and scored a beauty of a try, starting when Le Roux fielded a high ball, beat two defenders before setting up the attack. Canan Moodie moved seamlessly into the backline and offloaded to De Klerk, whose sudden acceleration took defenders out of play before an inside pass to De Wet to score.

Le Roux ▶️ De Klerk ▶️ Le Roux 🔥

The Vodacom Bulls make the most of their one-man advantage ⚡

📺 Stream #VURC on DStv: https://t.co/0P0NNhnwKw#SSRugby pic.twitter.com/6BkMP60FSa

— SuperSport Rugby (@SSRugby) October 17, 2025

Then came the drama around Murphy and his red card, but the Bulls struck again just after he left the field, on the same side of the pitch where Le Roux drew the defender and put De Klerk into a hole at speed, only to receive the inside pass to score a superbly worked try.

At 12-7 at the break, the Bulls were pretty chuffed with themselves as they upped the ante early in the second half with a cheeky drop-goal by Keagan Johannes in their first foray into the 22 in the half.

CONNACHT COMEBACK

But Connacht weren’t going away and they finally found a hole where Ioane put Bryan Ralston into a gap with an inside pass, and Ralston sent Caolin Blade in at the corner to score.

It was a one-point game again, but nine minutes later, the Bulls exploited the left flank again, this time Le Roux and Moodie putting De Klerk into space on the outside before the inside pass found De Wet again for his second.

Johannes added a conversion and a penalty for an 11-point lead and it looked as if the Bulls would cruise home, but a turnover ball, a kick through and Johannes missing the bobbling ball allowed Sean Naughton to kick ahead and score in the corner.

Connacht are fighting back in Galway 😤🟢

📺 Stream #VURC on DStv: https://t.co/0P0NNho4A4#SSRugby pic.twitter.com/Ur1wRrPKj8

— SuperSport Rugby (@SSRugby) October 17, 2025

A penalty brought Connacht within six and as the game was winding down, a high tackle by Willie le Roux led to the crowd baying for blood. The hit was adjudged to be mostly on the body, but a penalty led to a sustained round of pressure on the Bulls' line. The ball went wide and Irish winger Mack Hansen stretched out to score, bringing his team within one with the conversion to come.

Then came the drama of two kicks that could have won the game for Connacht and the Bulls held on for a big victory, even if it was too close for comfort.

In the process, though, they probably would have solidified the team spirit that coach Johan Ackermann is searching for, and that will be good as they head to Glasgow for their third and final tour match.

Because through all the drama and tension, the team did what they needed to. One point is as good a win as any, just ask any Springbok fan at the 2023 World Cup.

SCORERS

CONNACHT - tries: Josh Ioane, Caolin Blade, Sean Naughton, Mack Hanson. Conversions: Josh Ioane (2). Penalty: Naughton.

VODACOM BULLS - tries: Paul de Wet (2), Willie le Roux. Conversions: Keagan Johannes (2). Penalties: Johannes (2). Drop goals: Johannes.

Winger Eduan Keyter made a better-than-expected recovery from illness and will line up on the right wing for the Lions’ Vodacom United Rugby Championship round three fixture against Scarlets on Saturday.

Keyter missed the loss against Benetton, pulling out of the game before kick-off, and this week, assistant coach Ricardo Loubscher said he wouldn’t be available for Saturday, but he has been named in the starting line-up for the Lions’ first home game of the URC season.

In another change, Nico Steyn comes into the starting line-up for Morne van den Berg, who was injured against Benetton, while on the bench, Reinhard Nothnagel returns after a long period on the sidelines with injury.

LIONS: Quan Horn; Eduan Keyter, Henco van Wyk, Richard Kriel, Angelo Davids; Chris Smith, Nico Steyn; Francke Horn, Ruan Venter, JC Pretorius, Darrien Landsberg, Etienne Oosthuizen, Asenathi Ntlabakanye, Franco Marais, SJ Kotze.

Replacements: Morne Brandon, RF Schoeman, Conraad van Vuuren, Reinhard Nothnagel, Jarod Cairns, Layton Horn, Lubabalo Dobela, Kelly Mpeku.

 

We're back home. Match 23 to face Scarlets at Ellis Park Stadium this Saturday. 🦁🔥

👉 Get your tickets now: https://t.co/K3pkZauXcc@Vodacom #URC | #ForOurCity | #SCAvLIO#LionsPride pic.twitter.com/8WND0yQ4yO

— Lions (@LionsRugbyCo) October 17, 2025

 

Springbok fullback Warrick Gelant returns as one of four changes to the DHL Stormers team for Saturday night’s fourth round Vodacom United Rugby Championship clash with Zebre in Parma (kick-off 20.45).

It will be Gelant’s first appearance of the season after overcoming an injury problem that kept him from playing in the early games. Wandisile Simelane, normally a centre, was a capable replacement in the first two games while current Bok No 15 Damian Willemse played there in the 34-0 win over Scalets in Llanelli last week.

Gelant’s seasonal debut in the last line of the defence has enabled Stormers director of rugby John Dobson to shift Willemse to inside centre, where he was brilliant for the Boks in their 43-10 triumph over the All Blacks in Wellington in the Castle Lager Rugby Championship last month,

Willemse’s shift to the midfield means that Simelane drops to the bench, where he will provide excellent cover for several positions, and Ruhan Nel shifts back to his more regular position of outside centre after wearing the No 12 last week. Nel will continue as the captain. The prospect of Willemse lining up next to Sacha Feinberg-Mngomezulu in the No 10/No 12 decision making axis is a particularly exciting one for those who intend watching the match.

The other changes come to the forward pack, with Adre Smith joining Ruben van Heerden in the second row and JD Schickerling now providing bench cover. Zachary Porthen will make his first start at tighthead, which suggests Sazi Sandi, who was injured last week, isn’t quite ready to play in this game.

Prop Hencus van Wyk, who is at the Stormers on loan from the Cheetahs, will make his debut off the replacements bench, which also features Ruan Ackermann.

Nel was excited about having Gelant back in the team and said that in his own view the fullback is a world class player.

“Having Warrick back is very exciting as he takes lot of pride in playing No 15 and dominates space in that position, and we are all obviously familiar with his attacking ability,” said the Stormers skipper.

“Gazza (Willemse) is also obviously a world class 15, which I believe Warrick is, but it will be good to have him next to me in the midfield. In fact it is great to have Sacha and Damian playing inside me. I saw an interview recently where Damian de Allende said he didn’t know what Sacha was going to do, and now I have two of those guys inside me,” he laughed.

Dobson said he was looking forward to seeing Porthen, who was the Junior Springbok skipper last year, make his first start.

“Fortunately Sazi’s injury isn’t as bad as thought and he could play next week against Benetton, but this is a great opportunity for Zach,” said Dobson.

“We have been very impressed with Zachary. He had a difficult World under-20 Champioship last year so we felt we needed to grow his scrumming, but he did well when he came on against Benetton last year and he surprised us. I am really excited to see what he can do. He is a player we think has a big future in the game.”

 

Here is our team for the Round Four @Vodacom #URC encounter in Parma on Saturday night.

📢 Team announcement https://t.co/cvprwUyNar#ZEBvSTO #inittogether pic.twitter.com/ZbUUDWwT38

— DHL Stormers (@THESTORMERS) October 17, 2025

 

Another player Dobson believes has a big future is loosehead prop Ntuthuko Mchunu, who moved to the Stormers from the Sharks in the offseason but has yet to play because of injury. The news on that front is good.

“We believe Ntuthuko is a special player and we are really looking forward to him playing for us. Initially we thought he’d make the Benetton game, but we have decided to be more cautious and he will definitely be available for our game against Munster at the end of November,” said the Stormers director of rugby.

Dobson also disclosed that while he wasn’t available to face Zebre, Bok lock Salmaan Moerat has joined the Stormers squad in Italy and will be available to play against Benetton in the last tour match. Cobus Reinach will fly out overnight and be available to make his debut for the Stormers in the Benetton game.

DHL Stormers team: Warrick Gelant, Seabelo Senatla, Ruhan Nel (captain), Damian Willemse, Leolin Zas, Sacha Feinberg-Mngomezulu, Stefan Ungerer, Evan Roos, Ben-Jason Dixon, Paul de Villiers, Ruben van Heerden, Adré Smith, Zachary Porthen, JJ Kotze, Ali Vermaak.

Replacements: André-Hugo Venter, Vernon Matongo, Hencus van Wyk, JD Schickerling, Ruan Ackermann, Marcel Theunissen, Imad Khan, Wandisile Simelane.

There is a need for a statement win across the board for South African teams in the fourth round of the Vodacom United Rugby Championship, but it is the top two local finishers from last year, the Vodacom Bulls and the Hollywoodbets Sharks, who go into it under the most pressure.

Bulls coach Johan Ackermann has made 11 changes from the side that lost comprehensively to Ulster last week for a tough away match on Friday night against Connacht, who will be equally desperate for a win so that they can create a platform at the start of a new era under former England coach Stuart Lancaster. 
If the Bulls win it will be their third win in four, and the loss to Ulster will look like an aberration. Lose and it starts to get tough from here as they jostle for the top two finish they have managed over the past two seasons to get them into successive finals.

A win over the same Ulster team that was so good against the Bulls last week is even more of an imperative for the Sharks, as they have only the two points for the draw against the Dragons to show from their first three matches. Any alarm about the Sharks at this early stage of the season is misplaced as this competition is a marathon and not a sprint, and there have been injuries on top of the Sharks’ Bok absentees, but if they don’t win the first home game, the alarm will start becoming more justified.

The Sharks have their phalanx of top Boks back for the game, with the only significant absentee being the injured Aphelele Fassi, and their coach summed it up at the team announcement press conference on Friday when he said there was no room for excuses for this game.

There is the small matter of this week being the first time he has seen his Boks since June, and game growth is something the Sharks will always struggle with if they continue to go through their pre-season with so many top players not participating, but Plumtree reminded us that last year the Sharks were in the same situation when they played their first home game against Glasgow Warriors and they hit their straps.

The Lions have been South Africa’s poorest performers so far and have just the losing bonus point to Zebre to their name, but they should win against a struggling Scarlets team at Ellis Park. That is particularly so if you consider the game kicks off at 13.45, which makes it particularly uncomfortable for a visiting team that also has to deal with altitude.

The Stormers could hardly have asked for a better start to the season as they sit top after the firt three rounds and they will be looking to add to the early platform they have created for themselves by beating Zebre in Parma on Saturday night. The Stormers have never lost to the Italian team but Zebre are a fast improving side.

The best of the games not featuring South African teams this weekend is the Irish derby between Leinster and Munster in Dublin. Friday night’s Edinburgh/Benetton clash in Edinburgh could be a tightly fought game too.

FOURTH ROUND VODACOM URC FIXTURES

Dragons v Cardiff Rugby (Newport, Friday 20.45)

The Dragons are in a familiar position near the bottom of the log but their draw with the Sharks in their last home game should give them confidence. Cardiff have enjoyed a strong start to the season but they are always better at home than they are on the road. This could be a tight game.

Prediction: Cardiff to edge it by less than 7

Edinburgh v Benetton (Edinburgh, Friday 20.45)

Edinburgh lost by only one point to Munster last week and that was encouraging as it was an away game, but they lost to Zebre in the opening week and then their scheduled game against Ulster was postponed by the arrival of Storm Amy. So Edinburgh are under pressure against a visiting team that has challenged strongly in the last two seasons and easily beat the Lions last week. However the word “visiting” is important there - Benetton tend to be better at home than away.

Prediction: Edinburgh to scrape it by 1 to 4 points.

Connacht v Vodacom Bulls (Connacht, Friday 20.45)

Shew, this one is a hard one to call. Galway has been a tough place for South African teams in the past but it has got a bit easier more recently. Connacht have a new coach in Stuart Lancaster and the Bulls also have a new coach in Johan Ackermann. The Bulls have lost once and Connacht have lost once, although the Irish side also missed out on a game because of the weather. Connacht lost narrowly away to Cardiff in the last round but a better measure of their ability might be their 26-15 win over Benetton in the first round. The 11 changes made to the Bulls makes this game even less easy to predict but what the Bulls do possess is depth and a look through the team list suggests they may just have enough to sneak a win.

Prediction: Bulls to scrape it.

Lions v Scarlets (Johannesburg, Saturday 13.45)

With three losses in three starts it has been a horrible start to their campaign for the Lions, who showed some disturbing flaws on defence against Benetton last week. However, they are back on their home patch this week and are playing against a Scarlets team that have been poor so far and were outplayed 34-0 by at home by the Stormers. With an early afternoon kick-off it should be an easy win for the Lions to get their campaign on track.

Prediction: Lions to win by 15

Hollywoodbets Sharks v Ulster (Durban, Saturday 16.00)

Eben Etzebeth, Ox Nche, Siya Kolisi, Grant Williams and Andre Esterhuizen are the big guns who have returned to strengthen the Sharks, while Siya Masuku is back to make his first URC start of the season in the No 10 jersey. Jordan Hendrikse is fit again and will cover that position from the bench. So if you take away the fact he hasn’t seen most of these players since June, coach John Plumtree is right when he says this weekend’s game should see no excuses. But Ulster aren’t a poor team, they showed that against the Bulls last week, so a win is no gimme.

Prediction: Sharks to win by 10.

Leinster v Munster (Dublin, Saturday 18.15)

This is always one of the big derby games of the URC season and this time it is Leinster under more pressure than Munster, who arrive in Dublin second on the log, just behind the Stormers on points difference. Leinster of course are still feeling the pressure created by the two defeats on South African soil, but their win over the Sharks will have stabilised them and on their home ground, and with even more British and Irish Lions back than was they case last week, they should be favoured to win.

Prediction: Leinster to win by 12

Zebre v DHL Stormers (Parma, Saturday 20.45)

The Stormers haven’t named their team yet but given that at least one of them is set to fly home next week, their Bok duo of Sacha Feinberg-Mngomezulu and Damian Willemse should be in the side. Feinberg-Mngomezulu was the Stormers star in a good win there a few years ago when he was playing one of his first matches at URC level, and as an inside centre on that occasion, so he should have good memories of Parma. So should the Stormers, who won comfortably there last year. The Lions lost at this venue a fortnight ago but the Stormers have momentum and also no doubt the commitment needed to pick up a second tour win.

Prediction: Stormers to win by 12

Ospreys v Glasgow Warriors (Swansea, Saturday 20.45)

The Ospreys have lost twice, but both those games were in South Africa. Glasgow have lost once, to Benetton two weeks ago. They also weren’t particularly impressive in their opener against the Sharks at Scotstoun, but they do have some big-name players back since then, and scored a one-sided 49-0 win over the Dragons last week.

Prediction: Glasgow to win by 8

“What is wrong with the Sharks?” I’m in Sharks country now after having celebrated a significant birthday at my timeshare in Drakensberg Gardens this week and that is a question that gets asked by everyone who wants to talk rugby in this part of the world.

As Rassie Erasmus would say, it is a positive in that it is an indication that people care. The day there are no fans asking questions is the day the Sharks should be worried. But whether there is anything wrong with the Sharks at all should depend on your perspective on what they’ve faced so far in this early part of the season.

Given the pre-season they had, and their top Springboks being unavailable, you wouldn’t have seen me advising anyone to put money on them against the Glasgow Warriors at the Scotstoun or for that matter Leinster in Dublin.

Those were two games that were always going to be a bit beyond the Durbanites, so it was really only the Dragons game of the three on tour that was disappointing.

The 17-all draw in Newport hurt them more than either of the two defeats, and there was context to it - Storm Amy was sweeping across the UK that Friday night and at one stage the rain, propelled by a strong wind, was coming into the players’ faces from a sideways direction.

There were other sporting events postponed that weekend, and given the conditions the game was played in, that could easily have been the case with the Rodney Parade clash.

Weather like that is always a great leveller, although the Sharks would have been livid with themselves for not capitalising better on their massive domination of the forward exchange, in particular the scrums.

Dragons were the wooden spooners last season but it is true that the weaker teams are often more dangerous in the early part of the campaign than later on, when injuries start to erode depth. The Welsh region has several newcomers on their books, so to me the Newport game was always going to be a potential banana peel for the Sharks.

Not that the possible early season fight of the Dragons was the only reason I gave them a chance - I also happened to be in Durban during the pre-season and saw for myself the massive obstacles that coach John Plumtree had to overcome to get a decent sized squad together for the early games.

I arrived at Hollywoodbets Kings Park on a Tuesday morning to do a few interviews before heading to the outer field to watch the URC squad practice.

I was warned that I’d be surprised how many players Plumtree would be working with, and I was - there were 10 players on the training field, with another four, including as an example prop Ruan Dreyer, doing exercises on the sidelines as part of a rehabilitation squad.

Apparently there were even fewer players before that and given how little a coach can get out of not having at least two teams at a training session, I wondered aloud if there was any point to a pre-season when there were so players.

Plumtree though was stoic, and spoke about the players he would be bringing in from unions like, in particular, the Airlink Pumas, and just said that it was the card he’d been dealt by having so many injuries on top of the Boks being away and he’d just have to ensure he had enough players to challenge in the first three games.

Now that he has called out a full strength side for the game against Ulster, with the star players returning, he must feel he has come through a particularly rough period.

LEINSTER COACH KNOWS HOW PLUMTREE FEELS NOW

Plumtree said after the Leinster game that he’d been in conversation with the opposition team’s coach Leo Cullen, who had complained about how difficult it had been for him having his British and Irish Lions out for the initial fortnight of the season when they toured South Africa.

The Sharks coach admitted that the conversation had left him a bit bemused, for while Leinster did undeniably suffer from having their star players absent, which led to them losing both tour games, it is only really in a year that there is a Lions tour that Leinster face that challenge.

“We face it every year,” said Plumtree.

Which he does. At least in the case of the Leinster Lions, they would have been phased back into training with the Leinster coaches a few weeks before they returned to the playing field. Plumtree, having only just arrived back from tour with the rest of his squad, will have had limited chance to work with his returning Boks in the few days he had available to him before the Ulster game.

The Sharks did start well when the Boks returned last year, beating the then reigning URC champions at Kings Park, but it is far from an ideal situation to have such limited time with the players.

STORMERS PROFITING FROM HAVING FEWER BOKS

Given how tough it is for Plumtree to never have his Boks available for the pre-season, something he has never been able to do and he is heading into his third season now in this stint with the Sharks, it was interesting to listen to the views of Stormers attack coach Dawie Snyman in an online press conference this week.

Unlike the Sharks, the Stormers were without just three players who are frontline Boks during the first two rounds, and then welcomed back two of them, Sacha Feinberg-Mngomezulu and Damian Willemse, for their game against Scarlets last weekend.

And even then, according to Snyman, the reintroduction wasn’t completely seamless as the Stormers have made a few tweaks to their game that the Bok duo weren’t exposed to due to their non-participation in the off-season.

There are several areas where the Stormers appear to have made improvements because of work put in during the off-season, and they’ve made an impressive start to their URC campaign. The Sharks can’t grow their game in the pre-season just because so many of their top players and game drivers are absent during that period.

A GOOD DRAW HELPS TOO

I thought the Bulls fell short against Ulster in Belfast last week mainly because of the number of changes that were made when coach Johan Ackermann brought back his Springboks. The Bulls dominated the early phases of the game but failed to score the points they should have and then the fact the Bulls were a team that hadn’t played together for a while started to show.

I completely disagree with their president, who tweeted that it was one of the worst, if not the worst Bulls performances of the URC era.

They were up against a good Ulster side who are formidable at home and paid for the fact that their Boks had only come back into the system a few days earlier and would not have been exposed to what their new coach had been working on during the pre-season.

But the Bulls at least had two games at home to start the competition and in that sense the draw helped them. Ditto the Stormers, who did in theory have a tough start as their first game was against the competition champions. But they started at home and Leinster were far from full strength.

The Stormers’ much better start to their campaign than previous seasons is down to the good work they appear to have done in the off-season, and not taxing their URC players in the off-season Currie Cup certainly helped there too, but they’ve also been presented with a better draw than in some recent seasons too.

They probably targeted two wins from their three tour games but if they win against Zebre in Parma on Saturday, and my money says they will, they will have a great chance of going better than that by beating Benetton in Treviso the following week and making it three from three on tour and five from five from the season so far.

JURIE SHOULD JUST BE JURIE

They won’t be playing Feinberg-Mngomezulu in Treviso has he does need to spend some time at home before heading off on tour again with the Boks, but the pre-season has helped director of rugby John Dobson with his depth, with Jurie Matthee delivering impressive performances in the first two games before being benched last week.

The problem for the Stormers now that they have lost Manie Libbok to Japan is that Matthee is a very different mould of player to Feinberg-Mngomezulu and that may be the reason there are some who feel that the Stormers have been a bit more conservative in their approach than they usually are.

You have to cut your cloth to fit your suit, as the saying goes, and there were times last season when I felt that Matthee let himself down by trying to be too much like Libbok. Matthee isn’t a flashy player but he has great attributes and should just try to be Jurie. If the Stormers are looking for more flash from their flyhalf at the times Feinberg-Mngomezulu isn’t there they can use Damian Willemse at 10.

JONES THE EXCEPTION TO OPPOSITION TO R360

That even Australia’s NRL has followed the unprecedented action of eight national unions in the rugby union code in announcing drastic measures to prevent their players from joining the R360 movement is to me an indication that the proposed rebel league is a bigger threat than I thought.

The eight nations, including South Africa, New Zealand, Australia, Ireland, France and Scotland, announced in a joint statement that they would bar from international selection any player who signs for the R360. The NRL has followed that by saying that any player who signs for R360, who remain bullish about their plans and claim to have recruited many of the world’s top players, will be banned from the NRL for 10 years.

In both cases that is a strong deterrent and is a big blow to R360 plans as their proposed league is to fall outside of the international window but one top rugby figure who sees the rebel league as a good thing for rugby is Eddie Jones.

That’s perhaps unsurprising if you know how much Jones loves cricket. He mentioned the positive changes brought by the Kerry Packer rebel series in that sport in the late 1970s as something that rugby should keep in mind when considering the R360 proposals and the way forward.

“I think we need it, mate,” said Jones in an interview with The Times in England. “You think about what the World Series Cricket did for cricket. It changed the whole game from being a drab sport to an exciting game that people wanted to get involved in. And I think that’s part of the problem with rugby at the moment.”

Jones went on to say that while international rugby is thriving, the club/provincial level of the game is in trouble in most parts of the world, with Japan, the nation he coaches now, and France being the exceptions.

“Test rugby is that (interesting). But we need another level that is an entertainment level that brings more fans and more sponsors and more commercialism into the game to allow our more traditional levels of rugby to continue.”

HARD TO PARALLEL CRICKET WITH RUGBY IN THIS INSTANCE

I don’t completely disagree with Jones’ points, but find any parallel to what has happened in cricket, either many years ago when Packer was changing the face of the sport or more recently the flourishing leagues that have followed the IPL example, hard to follow.

Cricket is a more individual sport than rugby. In the sense that there is much more focus on the individual performances and accumulation of points. When AB de Villiers batted in the IPL, or Barry Richards in World Series Cricket, South Africans would have felt compelled to watch or follow their performances and globally it was easy to appreciate their skills.

However, the support of rugby strikes me as a lot more tribal than that of cricket, and a global series played out by teams that are drawn together from different nations and don’t have a tribal history might struggle to inspire interest.

For instance, if you are a Sharks or Springbok fan Eben Etzebeth being part of a driving maul that helps either of those teams in their quest to win may be seen as a thing of beauty. But I am not sure it is a thing of beauty on its own in the same way as a batting or bowling performance would be.

RUGBY ESTABLISHMENT IS OWN WORST ENEMY

The one thing that is particularly appealing about the R360, and promotes the space in which the rebel movement operates, is that the organisers appear to understand the concept of less being more.

The number of games played by players who sign up will be significantly less than is the case now, and rugby needs that. The 12-month South African season is unsustainable and it is not only this country that perhaps is guilty of pushing players to play too much rugby.

In that regard, the disappointing aspect of the announcement that the Rugby Championship will continue in the years when none of the planned tours featuring in particular the Springboks and All Blacks is, as my colleague Brenden Nel has noted, that they are sticking with the August and September window.

There was talk of moving the Championship into the same window as the Six Nations, meaning February/March, which would have solved South Africa’s problem of being on a southern hemisphere roster when it comes to international rugby but on a northern one when it comes to club rugby.

Had the change been made, it would have been a significant step towards the establishment of the long awaited and much needed global season. Rugby doesn’t know how to help itself sometimes. If there are players who still sign up for R360 on the player welfare grounds of getting more money for less work you could hardly blame them.

There would be much more of a lure to remain loyal to the establishment if the global season was ushered in to make life easier for players and the quality of the product would surely also improve.

For Ruhan Nel, captaining the DHL Stormers is not only an honour and a privilege, but also a big boost to his game.

The 34-year-old centre has been at the helm of the Cape Town-based team as they have won their first three Vodacom URC matches to sit on top of the table.

He’s now looking to lead them to further victories as they take on the Italian job with back-to-back games away to Zebre Parma and Benetton Rugby.

The Port Elizabeth-born Nel has been with the DHL Stormers since 2019, having had previous spells with the Lions, Griquas and Western Province, but this is the veteran’s first stint as captain.

“It’s a massive honour,” he declared.

“When I was younger, I always used to say I don’t think I will ever be a captain, I just play with too much emotion. My heart is on my sleeve.

“But it’s been an absolutely great experience. It’s obviously something a lot of people dream about, to lead out their team one day, and especially a team like the Stormers. So it’s been good.

“Ever since I stepped into this role, I almost feel like I’ve been forced to be a bit calmer and a bit more level-headed on the field, which has been good for my game as well.

“You are much more aware, your finger is much more on the pulse of the game, so I actually feel it has been doing me good.

“I’ve been pretty comfortable in the role. At 13, you can be isolated from the scrums and lineouts, but there are the likes of JD (Schickerling) in the lineouts and Neethling (Fouché), who have captained the side before.

“This is not a one-man show. We have great leaders on the field, which has been helping me and making the job a bit easier.

“I am just really privileged and honoured to be in this position.”

The former South African Sevens star, who made close to 150 appearances for the Blitzboks, has provided mature leadership so far this season, while also serving as a key figure in a miserly defence.

Remarkably, the Stormers have conceded just ten points in their opening three league matches, nilling both champions Leinster Rugby and the Scarlets either side of a 26-10 victory over the Ospreys.

“When it comes to defence, it obviously shows a lot how much a team cares for one another,” said Nel.

“Only leaking two tries in three weeks shows that the boys are really putting in some hard work and how we care for each other.

“We are happy with the start we have made. I am never going to complain about a win.”

Having followed up two home victories with a 34-0 success in Llanell, the Cape Town team now travel to Parma and Treviso with a clear objective.

“We are looking to make this the most successful Stormers tour yet,” said Nel.

“We want to go three from three. To make that happen, we have to have certain things in place.

“If the set piece, lineout and scrums are functioning properly and if our breakdowns are quick, opportunities automatically come from that.

“If we are a little bit sloppy in those things, we can’t get into our natural flow. So a big focus is on us carrying the ball into contact, the breakdown and kick return being solid and through that we will get opportunities to open up.”

Head coach John Dobson is also setting his sights on a triumphant tour and says the kind of defensive effort shown in posting another clean sheet against the Scarlets will be key to that.

“Right to the end, the boys kept defending like we were on our try-line,” he said.

“They were chasing kicks and that was special. It is something you can’t coach.

“We can still tweak a few things with the ball in hand. We would love to get our attack going, but the focus is to win on this tour.

“I don’t want to sound overconfident, but this is a great chance for us to get three wins on tour.

“We have had poor starts in URC one and four, and reasonable starts in two and three. The difference it makes to your camp when you start well, from the style of rugby, to communication, to selection policy and bravery is immense.

“To not feel as if you have a knife against your throat is important. So we want to have as good a start as possible. Like Ruhan said, we want to try and make this the most successful Stormers tour.

“In a league like this, which is a marathon, every game is important because you have to be hosting play-offs and to get that you have to win away games. So it is really important for us to make a statement.”

To use Dobson’s words, the Stormers are being boosted by “a platoon” heading for Italy, with Salmaan Moerat, Warrick Gelant, Clinton Swart, Oli Kebble, and Adre Smith flying out to join the group.

With three Springboks named as backline reserves the Hollywoodbets Sharks team to face Ulster in their fourth round Vodacom United Rugby Championship clash in Durban on Saturday is a much more accurate reflection of the franchise’s strength than what we have seen so far.

This was always going to be the point that coach John Plumtree was going to reintroduce his big guns and he hasn’t disappointed, with Andre Esterhuizen, Grant Williams, Siya Koliis, Eben Etzebeth and Ox Nche all getting their first Sharks games of the new season after their two week break following their part in South Africa’s Castle Lager Rugby Championship triumph.

The boys are pumped for our first home game of the season 💪

Who are you most excited to see at The Tank?@Vodacom #URC #SHAvULS pic.twitter.com/e3ZjGxvWIV

— The Sharks (@SharksRugby) October 16, 2025

In addition to that, there are further first choice players back in the mix after returning from injury. Siya Masuku played as a replacement flyhalf last week against Leinster but this week he starts in the No 10 jersey, with Bok capped Jordan Hendrikse getting his first run of the season as his backup.

Hendrikse’s Bok brother Jaden Hendrikse is also on the bench, along with Lukhanyo Am. What team in the world wouldn’t want the 2019 World Cup winner in their team, let alone on the bench? Am will back up Esterhuizen and Jurenzo Julius from the bench in the Ulster game.

Edwill van der Merwe, Ethan Hooker, and Makazole Mapimpi continue as the all Bok back three from last week, with Julius and Masuku the only backline players who are not current Boks. The team will be captained by Vincent Tshituka, who has done a good job so far this season, even though national captain Kolisi and Etzebeth are back in the team.

Hollywoodbets Sharks team: Edwill van der Merwe, Ethan Hooker, Jurenzo Julius, Andre Esterhuizen, Makazole Mapimpi, Siya Masuku, Grant Williams, Phepsi Buthelezi, Vincent Tshituka (captain), Siya Kolisi, Marvin Orie, Eben Etzebeth, Vincent Koch, Bongi Mbonambi, Ox Nche.

Replacements: Fez Mbatha, Simphiwe Matanzima, Ruan Dreyer, Bathobele Hlekani, Emmanuel Tshituka, Jaden Hendrikse, Jordan Hendrikse.

Life has changed quite considerably for Ethan Hooker in the months he last played for the Hollywoodbets Sharks on his home field in Durban and he will get a chance to show off his growth as a player in Saturday’s first home Vodacom URC game against Ulster.

He was a Springbok already when the Sharks bowed out of their 2024/2025 URC campaign with a quarterfinal defeat to the Vodacom Bulls in Pretoria, but he didn’t have the stature he has now following his telling contribution to Bok wins over New Zealand away and Argentina twice in the Castle Lager Rugby Championship.

The Westville old boy is just 22 years of age and while before he made his graduation to be a starting Bok on the wing he was considered a player of huge promise, he hadn’t actually been properly tested yet.

He’s been tested now, and some, with his brilliant counter-attacking run against the All Blacks in Wellington perhaps being his statement moment in a thrilling string of games.

He scored a good intercept try for the Sharks last week against Leinster in Dublin and showed his touches with limited opportunity, but his eagerly awaited return to Hollywoodbets Kings Park is a big moment for both him and the team.

“I think it is huge. It is our first home game and it is a big one,” said Hooker.

“We don’t really want to lose any home games so I think we’re going to come firing out of the blocks and hopefully we can sustain pressure on them for 80 minutes.

“(Personally) I am just really looking forward to running out onto Kings Park again. I sort of miss that feeling, playing in front of the home crowd and the cheers you get. The atmosphere at our home ground is electric and hopefully we can produce a good game of rugby for the spectators.”

The Sharks need to produce more than just a good game if they hope to ease some of the pressure that is mounting on them after a tour where they did not win a game (they drew with the Dragons) - they need to make sure they are on the winning side.

“Ulster are like any other team, they are physical and they are clinical,” he said. “I think we just have to match that and overpower them. We need to use our big, experienced forwards to get us across the gain-line and then just profit on that as the backs and make sure we get the points that are on offer.”

The Sharks have left quite a few points on the table so far this season through poor finishing, particularly last week against Leinster where they were forced to play catch-up against a very organised defensive system from an early stage of the game.

They should also have beaten the Dragons in inclement conditions the week before had they taken their opportunities.

Being clinical in execution is what Hooker considers his biggest learning from playing for the Boks and he hopes the return of himself and several experienced players will improve that aspect of the Sharks’ game against Ulster.

“I think the big thing that opened my eyes at the Boks was just how clinical they are, particularly when it comes to closing out and winning games,” said Hooker.

“I would like to see that transferred to the Sharks, to see us create a culture around that,” he added.

The Sharks team for the Ulster clash will be announced around lunch time on Thursday.

The Lions are very aware of the criticism they’ve received since their start to this year’s Vodacom United Rugby Championship campaign, but they’re hopeful this Saturday’s match against bottom-of-the-log Scarlets will provide them with a turnaround strategy that can give them hope for the long haul ahead.

Assistant coach Ricardo Loubscher fronted up to media in Johannesburg ahead of the game and said while the team were still hurting from their three losses in as many games - they sit just ahead of Scarlets at the bottom of the log - there was still a lot of hope in the side.

The chance to face a fellow struggling side on the Highveld has given them a lot of hope, although there are doubts whether it will address all the underlying issues the side have at the moment, or restore confidence in a coaching team that has underperformed for five seasons now.

While at any other franchise that would be enough for a change, the Lions plod on, and continue to lament lost chances with virtually every post-match briefing sounding the same.

Loubscher didn’t go that route, to his credit, but did say it was the talking on the field that would count more than anything else.

TALKING ON THE FIELD

“I can talk and say a lot of good things but at the end of the day, it is about what we do out on the field and how we perform there,” Loubscher said.

“Behind the scenes, as coaches and players, we really work hard. We understand that people are maybe frustrated with our results but there is a lot of hard work going into it. We are going to keep working hard and, hopefully, we can turn the corner this weekend.”

Loubscher also denied there was a hangover from the Currie Cup final loss against Griquas, the Lions second last-second loss in a domestic competition in as many years, and believes it is simply about getting the execution right.

“No, I don't think so. When we analyse our games, we're getting excited about the opportunities, especially on the weekend against Benetton. We created so many opportunities. What was lacking was just the execution of that. So we had a few cross kicks into space.

“And it was just the execution of that. Angelo (Davids) was over the line but just knocked on as he went over. Then we probably identified five or more when we went through the game. I think you guys know it's all about momentum.

“Sometimes you need that one point win just to get that confidence and momentum going. And if it's not happening, it's almost like you have to restart. But the energy is good.

GOOD TO BE BACK AT HOME

“We can't wait for Saturday. It's nice to be back. Just to feel the sun. Obviously the weather was also good on that side. But it's nice to be at home, sleeping in your own bed. Some familiar things around you.

“So we can't wait. We know it's going to be a tough challenge on Saturday. Scarlets bring a different challenge. Defensively, they challenge you in a different way. So from an attack point of view, we need to make plans to handle that.”

One player the Lions will be without is Morne van den Berg, who picked up a hamstring injury early in the Benetton game. Nico Steyn is set to start with Layton Horn his deputy. World Junior Player of the year Hashim Pead will be involved in the SA under-21 final for the Lions this weekend against the Sharks.

“Unfortunately, he (Morne) picked up a hamstring injury. Hopefully it’s not too serious. So he's not available for the weekend. Yeah, but it's a tough one to lose him that early in the game.

“If I think back now, the week, the energy. He was so excited to be back and just to contribute to the team on and off the field. So hopefully we'll find out probably next week when he's available for the next game.

KRAPPIES MAY BE BACK NEXT WEEK

“He may be back for the Ulster game. So obviously we have to wait for the doctor and the physios and medical team. They're doing a brilliant job. We have to wait for them to just give us an update. And we'll get that on Monday, next week.

“But as you can see, he's walking around. He thinks he's also a coach or something. Yeah, that's good,” Loubscher laughed.

“It's lovely to have him around. He's just such a good guy and a good teammate. And I think he just wants to serve the team on and off the field.”

 

We back at Ellis Park this weekend. Playing for You. For Our City.
🆚 Scarlets
🗓: Sat, 18 Oct
⏰: 13:45
🎟️: https://t.co/K3pkZavv1K
🏟: Ellis Park Stadium @vodacom #URC | #ForOurCity | #LIOvSCA#LionsPride🦁 pic.twitter.com/kgbBBcvK0a

— Lions (@LionsRugbyCo) October 13, 2025

 

Another player to miss out is Eduan Keyter, who was a late withdrawal with illness last week and is likely to miss out this week as well.

Loubscher explained that Pead was always going to play for the under-21s, as the Lions see it as part of his development.

“No, I think the arrangement was always to have him available for the under-21s. I think it was nice to have him in the squad just to learn our systems. We're happy with Hash. The way he played for us. Obviously not a lot of game time but the plan was always for him to fly back and to join our juniors.”

The Lions will name their side for the Scarlets clash on Friday.

 

The Vodacom Bulls have confirmed that their Vodacom United Rugby Championship fixture against the DHL Stormers has been moved to March, rather than being played over the festive period.

The fixture list released at the start of the season saw the fixture scheduled for 27 December at Loftus Versfeld, a part of the year where many in the Bulls fan base are away for the Christmas holidays.

The Bulls also have been quite public about the fact they don’t like playing over the festive season, preferring to move the derbies they have been in until the March period where the Six Nations sees the URC taking a break up north.

Still, while there has been a belief that rugby wouldn’t draw crowds in Gauteng over the Christmas period, the game would also have clashed with the cricket matches at the same time of the year.

The Lions are also due to host the Hollywoodbets Sharks in Johannesburg on December 27, but no word has yet been uttered whether this game will be moved for the same reasons until March?

The moved fixture means the Bulls will have a week’s break over Christmas after facing the Sharks in Durban on December 19 and then will face the Stormers in Cape Town on January 3.

The URC are yet to change the fixture on their calendar, but the Bulls confirmed it via their twitter account on Wednesday.

A new captain and 11 changes to the starting line-up. That’s the Vodacom Bulls’ reaction to their defeat in Belfast against Ulster in naming their side ahead of Friday night’s Vodacom United Rugby Championship fixture against Connacht in Galway.

Reinhardt Ludwig, who only returned to action via the bench last weekend, will captain the side into battle as coach Johan Ackermann rang the changes in response to the first defeat of the season.

While the starting line-up is not only rotation, the bench sees a bunch of changes as well, the Bulls made full use of their extended squad to go into this fixture and try and repeat last season’s first win in the Irish coastal city.

Ludwig is a known leader, a former headboy at Affies and captained the first team and has been slowly been a growing voice in the bulls side, getting his chance to lead the side into battle with David Kriel, who was on the bench against Ulster, moving into the starting line-up as vice-captain.

The side had said goodbye to one of their Springboks - Handre Pollard, who flew back to South Africa for the birth of his second child.

But then Ackermann made a number of changes, with Alulutho Tshakweni replacing Springbok Gerhard Steenekamp at loosehead, Bok swinger Jan-Hendrik Wessels moving into the hooker position for Johan Grobbelaar while Wilco Louw will start again but then leave the camp after the Connacht match.

Ludwig comes into the starting line-up for Nicolaas Janse van Rensburg, while JJ Theron, the SA under-20 star, and Nama Xaba move into the starting line-up for Marco van Staden and Celimpilo Gumede.

Gumede and Janse van Rensburg are on the bench.

Pollard’s absence sees Keagan Johannes move back into the 10 jersey as he was in the opening two games of the season, while new recruit Paul de Wet partners him at nine.

In the midfield, another new recruit - Jan Serfontein moved into the 12 jersey, while Kriel is back at 13. In the back three, a hamstring injury to Devon Williams sees Willie le Roux move into the 15 role while Canan Moodie replaces Stravino Jacobs on the right wing and Sebastian de Klerk is on the left.

The changes mean the Bulls can field a strong bench front row of Steenekamp, Grobbelaar and Francois Klopper, while Janse van Rensburg and Gumede complete the forward complement. At the back, Embrose Papier, Vorster and Jacobs will cover in a traditional five three split.

Connacht arrive for this fixture having struggled recently in the VURC, with only two wins in their last eight matches, and both against Italian opposition. Despite this, the Irish province remained competitive at home, losing just once in their last four Championship games there, a 21-31 setback against Edinburgh last year.

Connacht’s record against South African teams, however, is less impressive, with just one victory from their last seven encounters, a narrow 36-30 win over the Sharks in Galway in September 2024.

The Bulls have lost their last two away games and have not suffered three consecutive away defeats since October 2023.

Historically, the two sides have clashed four times, with the Bulls holding the upper hand in three wins. Their only loss was a 7-34 defeat in Galway in 2021.

Vodacom Bulls: Willie le Roux; Canan Moodie, David Kriel, Jan Serfontein, Sebastian de Klerk; Keagan Johannes, Paul de Wet; Jeandre Rudolph, JJ Theron, Nama Xaba, Reinhardt Ludwig (captain), Cobus Wiese, Wilco Louw, Jan-Hendrik Wessels, Alulutho Tshakweni.

Replacements: Johan Grobbelaar, Gerhard Steenekamp, Francois Kloppers, Nicolaas Janse van Rensburg, Celimpilo Gumede, Embrose Papier, Harold Vorster, Stravino Jacobs.

It’s a fixture and a rivalry which has resonated with Josh van der Flier ever since he was a youngster.

So the significance of the Leinster-Munster derby is certainly not lost on him now as a player.

The Ireland flanker is anticipating a titanic tussle when the two arch enemies lock horns in front of a bumper Croke Park crowd on Saturday evening (5.15pm).

It’s all the more mouth-watering given Munster Rugby have started the season with a bang, winning their first three Vodacom URC games, and are also looking to end a four-match losing streak against Van der Flier’s Leinster Rugby, who have won eight of the last nine meetings between the teams.

That recent run of results in the fixture is rather different to the way things were when Wicklow product Van der Flier was in his formative years.

“When I was younger, Munster were by far the dominant side and it was always a tough watch when they played Leinster,” says the man who now proudly wears the blue colours.

“I remember when my sister was real small, she had a Munster jersey she used to wear because they were winning all the time. I think she supports Leinster now, thankfully!

“I remember, when I was at school, a lot of the Ireland backs would play for Leinster, and then the whole forward pack was nearly all Munster.

“It was unbelievably competitive. They were always ferocious fixtures.

“I think all the interpros have an element of edge to them, but particularly this game.

“One thing I find that makes it different is the amount of Munster fans living in Dublin because of the multi-cultural city that it is.

“There is always a good mix of fans, and they certainly let you know about it, in a great way. It makes for a great rivalry.”

The 73-cap openside continued:

“It’s always a huge, huge game. It’s always one of the ones you are incredibly excited for.

“It obviously means a lot to us playing against Munster. They are huge rivals.

“I suppose it has turned a bit in recent years in terms of the results. We have put in some really good performances and, most of the time, managed to be on the right side of it.”

It's Interpro week! 🔵v🔴

🏟️ We're off to Croke Park this Saturday for our @URCOfficial clash with @Munsterrugby.

Don't miss it! 💥👊

🎟️ Get your tickets here: https://t.co/vL1N0dbFZd#LEIvMUN #NeverLessThanEverything pic.twitter.com/lSFy7jltoI

— Leinster Rugby (@leinsterrugby) October 13, 2025

That’s certainly the case, with Leinster having won 14 of the last 16 and 22 of the last 25 meetings between the teams.

However, Munster will head into this weekend’s derby full of confidence, having recorded victories over the Scarlets, Cardiff Rugby and Edinburgh Rugby to sit level on points with the DHL Stormers at the top of the URC table.

“They have been very good. They look very organised and full of energy,” said Van der Flier.

“We are expecting Munster at their best because they have looked very impressive. Three wins from three, it’s a flawless start.

“We are expecting a huge challenge from a very good Munster side. It will take our best.

“It’s always been an unbelievably competitive fixture and it’s always an entertaining game.”

To add to the mix, players on both sides will be looking to stake a claim for selection in the Ireland team to face New Zealand at Chicago’s Soldier Field in the opening autumn international on November 1.

Prepping for a trip to Dublin this weekend 💪#SUAF 🔴 | #LEIvMUN pic.twitter.com/PaiBTgt12Z

— Munster Rugby (@Munsterrugby) October 13, 2025

“It will be weird. We will be knocking lumps out of each other on Saturday and then potentially together in camp on the Sunday evening,” said Van der Flier.

“It’s part of the game. I enjoy the inter-pro matches even more now, when you know the lads you are playing against well. It makes it more enjoyable.

“It’s like playing sport against your brother. It’s nice to beat them. It will be interesting, all right, but I suppose we are kind of used to it now.”

League champions Leinster go into the Croke Park clash having bounced back from successive defeats out in South Africa by beating the Hollywoodbets Sharks 31-5 at the Aviva Stadium last weekend.

That was a landmark occasion for the 32-year-old Van der Flier as he captained the province for the first time.

“I hadn’t done it before. The last time I was captaining a side was in a schools cricket final, so it was a lot different!” he revealed.

“When Leo (Cullen) asked me if I would like to captain the team, it was a nice honour to get. It’s not something I ever really looked for. There are a lot of great leaders here who are very good at it, and it comes very natural to them.

“From my point of view, it was probably just a bit of a busier week, I suppose. You are touching base with the coaches and other players around different areas of the game and messaging. There were a few meetings towards the end of the week I was heavily involved in as well.”

Asked whether he looked to emulate any of the skippers he has played under, he replied: “My temptation at the start of the week was ‘Right, this guy does this, I might copy that, I might say this’.

“But I got some good advice from a few different people. I spoke to my parents and a few of the lads. They said you’re not being asked to be captain because they want you to be someone else. It’s because they like the way I go about things.

“I was obviously very influenced by Johnny Sexton in terms of the way I think about the game, and I looked up to him a huge amount as a captain. He sent me a nice message the day before the game. He just said be yourself and enjoy it. I thought that was quite a nice thing, and that’s kind of what I tried to do.

“I just tried to be myself as much as possible.

“In fairness to the lads, they were very helpful. It was a cool experience and a great honour to be asked to do it, and it was nice to get the win. It was a good start to the home games, so we were happy enough with that.”

The Hollywoodbets Sharks have won two away games in succession against Ulster but that does not mean they don’t still owe the Northern Ireland province one when they visit Durban for Saturday’s Vodacom United Rugby Championship game at Hollywoodbets Kings Park.

The two teams will meet in contrasting positions when it comes to the pressure that is weighing on them - the Sharks have not won yet after three starts, with their draw against the Dragons in Newport on an inclement night in which Storm Amy caused other games to be postponed, while Ulster have comprehensively won both games they have played.

See you there 😋

🆚 Ulster
🗓️ 4pm Saturday 18th Oct
🎟️ From R51
🏟️ Hollywoodbets King Park@vodacom #urc pic.twitter.com/5AIO3ORqcP

— The Sharks (@SharksRugby) October 14, 2025

Ulster smashed the Dragons 42-21 in their first game of the season and then outplayed the Vodacom Bulls 28-7 last weekend. Their second game was due to be against Zebre but that was one of the games that Amy prevented from being played.

After a season in the doldrums there are big signs that the proud Ulster team is undergoing a renaissance and will arrive at the Durban game confident they can make it three out of three even though the Sharks will be reloaded with several Springbok stars who missed out on the tour.

Just Ethan Hooker and Makazole Mapimpi from the current Bok contingent started against Leinster last week, with Bongi Mbonambi and Vincent Koch playing off the bench.

Eben Etzebeth, Siya Kolisi, Ox Nche, Andre Esterhuizen and Grant Williams all sat out the Dublin game and some if not all of them should be back to play Ulster in a game which is at a similar time of the season and with the teams in similar positions as a scheduled game in Durban in October 2022.

Sean Everitt was still the Sharks coach then, Eduard Coetzee was still the Sharks CEO, and the Sharks were expected to be fully loaded with their Bok stars for the first time in a game that coincided with a Sharks Fan Day.

The Sharks would have been confident of winning that game but it ended up being postponed because of a tummy bug that swathed through the Ulster camp in their Umhlanga hotel during the buildup. The same thing happened to Glasgow Warriors, who were also staying in Umhlanga ahead of a game against the Lions, and both games were postponed.

There was much disappointment that the Durban game was postponed, with the postponement coming at the last minute. I had travelled to Durban to cover the match and was on my way to pick up my accreditation at Kings Park when I heard of the postponement on the car radio.

There was some rancour too, for it was felt that Ulster should have fulfilled their commitment despite the tummy bug, or else conceded the points. No mention was made at the time of a possible alternative, which was to fly Ulster players out from Belfast who hadn’t been affected by the tummy bug to play the game.

The then Director of Rugby at SA Rugby, Rassie Erasmus, weighed in on his unhappiness, adding to the voices of Coetzee and company who felt aggrieved that their season’s momentum, with that game having been pinpointed as a big one for the Sharks in terms of unveiling their way forward, had been broken by something out of their control.

The Sharks were going to be at full-strength but that would not necessarily be the case for the rescheduled date, and sure enough, when Ulster did eventually visit on 26 February 2023 they ended up facing a much weaker Sharks team than would have been the case had they played on the initial date. February is now a resting month in South Africa for Springbok players.

WE ARE SO BACK!! 😍

Get your tickets now for this weekends game at the Tank, 18 October 🚀@vodacom #URC #SHAvULS pic.twitter.com/ZjDkt5dTHX

— The Sharks (@SharksRugby) October 14, 2025

Ulster won that game 31-24, a result that had far reaching implications not only for the Sharks, who ended up just outside of the top seven finish they needed that season to qualify for the Investec Champions Cup, but also the DHL Stormers, who ended that campaign a close third to Ulster’s second.

Now, like then, the Sharks desperately need a win, and if it is achieved it should provide momentum, as they shouldn’t have too much difficulty picking up full points against Scarlets the following week.

They have paid back Ulster for their reluctance to fulfil their 2022 commitment by winning the last two games they have played against Ulster in Belfast - they won 22-12 there in March of this year and 22-19 in 2024, but when it comes to giving their Durban fans the satisfaction of seeing payback Saturday is their big opportunity.

The Sharks team for the Ulster game will be announced on Friday.

Given that the DHL Stormers have managed to accumulate 14 points out of a possible 15 from their three games in the Vodacom United Rugby Championship it can be taken as an ominous warning for future opponents that they feel there is still a lot of improving to do.

The Cape franchise were disappointing with the way they exited last season’s edition of the URC in the quarterfinal round against Glasgow Warriors but that miserable Friday night at The Scotstoun might not have been in vain for them as it is clear they have acted on some of the learnings from that experience.

One of the most disturbing things for Stormers fans would have been how their team was out-muscled in that game, and it might have been the cue for the development of the impressive physicality they have brought into the new season.

Forwards coach Rito Hlungwani should be delighted with the way his off-season work on the driving maul has paid off, with openside flank Paul de Villiers saying at a press conference on Tuesday that his mates were complaining that he was stealing all the hooker’s tries.

Two clean sheets and three wins 😏🌩️

The DHL Stormers go into week four at the top of the #VURC table 🔝#SSRugby pic.twitter.com/udz9bRkXcu

— SuperSport Rugby (@SSRugby) October 13, 2025

Defence coach Norman Laker should also be delighted after watching the off-season “tweaks to the defensive system” pay off with two games where the opposition try tally was kept to nil, although the poor house might be beckoning for him if he persists with his policy of rewarding the players for that by buying them confectionary.

A LOT MORE TO BE DELIVERED


But while you’d think that after scoring 95 points to 10 across three rounds, and picking up two try scoring bonus points out of a possible three, the attack coach Dawie Snyman would also be basking in it, and that perception would be wrong.

It’s not as if he is in a fit of depression, for changes have been made that require gradual rather than overnight development, but he agrees with the perception that more could have been delivered through the attacking game than has been the case.

“From an attack point of view we have still got a bit to show. Tactically some of the things we have worked on during the off-season have worked for us but it has just been a few games and there is still a lot left for us to show on attack,” said Snyman from Parma where the Stormers play Zebre on Saturday.

Given they are a team never short of bling, and have often been criticised for overplaying, it sounded weird to hear Snyman being questioned on the “more conservative” approach the Stormers have adopted. But nonetheless the question was asked, and Snyman didn’t deny it’s validity.

‘It is just to get the balance right, some of it is tactical and some is about playing to strengths in a particular situation,” he said.

“Every day you are presented with different scenarios and challenges and we have worked hard on finding ways that we can handle that. We see what the defence presents and then we find ways to exploit it.”

MORE MEASURED START IS PAYING OFF

The Stormers have paid for trying to hit their sixes too early in their innings at the start of previous seasons, and in almost every year the URC has been played you can go back and look at games the Stormers have sacrificed early on due to gifting their opponents with high risk and high reward rugby.

So it makes sense if indeed the Stormers are a tad more controlled in their approach this time around, a bit like Liverpool were when Andre Slot arrived to replace Jurgen Klopp as their manager. But that does not mean the Stormers have changed their DNA and this early part of the season can be seen as a foundation that could produce a lot of dazzle later.

“There is still a lot in the tank, a lot of stuff (we’ve worked on) but haven’t shown. There have been no big changes to our approach, just some aspects of our game that we have worked on. We won’t be going away from our DNA. We know what the players can do and we will always be looking to play into space.”

Snyman praised the forwards for the “slow poison” that had enabled the Stormers to grind down their opponents in all three games played so far.

“We have previously had poor starts to the season and that puts pressure on you from an early stage,” said the Stormers attack coach.

“It is nice to have momentum and energy after those performances and also know we haven’t played at our optimum and still have a lot left in the tank. We are happy with the wins but we are also not patting ourselves on the back and thinking that we have arrived. We are a team that continually wants to improve and develop.

“The games have had their own momentum and a lot of our play has been tactical, with the forwards doing a good job in taking out the opposition legs. And then we have a great bench coming on that brings energy. When you play quality sides there are times you need to grind it out.”

BOK DUO INTRODUCED TO NEW PLANS

One of the reasons the Stormers didn’t score quite as many tries as perhaps their dominance warranted in their 34-0 win over the Scarlets in Wales last week was that there were key figures in returning Springboks Sacha Feinberg-Mngomezulu and Damian Willemse being reintroduced to a team they had not played for since June.

“It wasn’t just the first time in a few months that we had seen Damian and Sacha, it was also the first time they had seen us. They didn’t have much exposure to us and what we have worked on during the off-season until they joined us from the final game of the Rugby Championship in London.

“They had to fit into new plans and all things considered they did well. They will get better and better once they get more used to it,” he added.

Now how’s that for a warning to future opponents if you consider how gifted both those players are.

Both players are expected to play in Saturday’s fourth round game against Zebre in Parma but Feinberg-Mngomezulu, after his massive involvement in the latter stages of the Boks’ Championship win, will return home for the final week of the tour, when the Stormers play Benetton, to rest up ahead of the end of year tour to France, UK and Ireland.