Unpeeling the Onion
Hi guys. I carried a real sadness after the Cardiff loss. I was stunned by what unfolded in those 80 minutes.
To be clear: Cardiff played really well. Their attacking shape was excellent and you could actually watch them evolve their approach during the game — being both proactive and finding solutions while the Stormers looked increasingly stuck in their patterns, coupled with mistakes at critical points.
And yet… we still have a home quarter-final, and there is the outside chance that we get more.
There is every possibility Leinster or Glasgow get rolled at home.
Just remember 2022/23: Leinster and Ulster finished 1st and 2nd, both lost at home in knockouts, and a 3rd-placed Stormers side were gifted a home final.
So this great tournament still has legs for Stormers fans and a chapter or two that still needs to be written
But there are still so many “what might have been” thoughts about this regular season.
A few things stand out to me:
- The fast start maybe flattered us a little
I honestly don’t think the first 6–8 games told us much.
The more we break it down, the more it looks like a gift ride in the park to start the season with.
The Irish sides especially looked flat after the B&I Lions/international cycle and many were missing rested internationals. We also faced all the Welsh and Italian sides that were never the main contenders. We capitalised, which good teams should do, but maybe it masked some deeper flaws.
That said, one genuinely encouraging sign was that Munster win away. It showed that even a Springbok-less Stormers side can physically and tactically compete with top teams, and we can make our own luck and capitalise.
- The final 20 minutes are a massive concern
This is the big one for me.
Look at both Sharks games, Cardiff, Connacht — there’s a repeated pattern where teams slowly peel us out of contests late in games.
Our accuracy with ball in hand drops. At a point in the game when you need some flow and structure with ball in hand, SFM and Galant often kicked away possession. You can point to specific moments in almost every loss where one inaccurate phase, pass or poor decision gifted momentum back to the opposition, and they score to put a result beyond us.
I cannot see fitness and conditioning being the issue (no player in Springboks or alignment camp could ever be called unfit), but you wonder what they are preparing for during the week.
The most frustrating part is how often we failed to fight for scraps:
-games where a penalty gets you a losing BP
-games where one late try gets you two bonus points
- the only game where there was a draw to chase was Lions away, but there were two points to bag there.
That mentality of “squeeze every point possible” felt missing this season.
And the numbers back it up:
-We finished with our second-lowest bonus point tally in the URC era.
-If we collect just a few more scraps across those losses, we’re comfortably 2nd.
-Add another 4–5 bonus points and we were realistically in the race for 1st.
Margins matter in this competition.
- The season is weird statistically
What makes this campaign so hard to judge is that:
-we still got 12 wins, matching our best URC seasons,
-we finished 3rd, which is our best outcome in three years.
Yet it never felt like a dominant Stormers season.
In previous years we were better at surviving ugly moments:
-turning losses into draws,
-grinding out bonus points,
-stealing results late,
-managing territory and momentum.
"Previous years" probably leans hard on the Stephen Kitshoff-led Stormers between 2021 and 2023, where all of the above traits were evident.
Looking back, we were actually really tough tourists.
Right now, our team often felt more explosive, but less controlled.
I do wonder if it is a leadership issue. Somebody in the huddle convincing everybody that they are better than they are performing in the moment.
Siya Kolisi might change that, but he only plays 50 minutes, so he doesnt solve the final 20, and he starts at expense of PDV/Brannas.
Maybe that says:
-we are more individually dangerous now,
-but less structurally efficient,
-and less composed in key moments.
Our 21 to 23 sides seemed better prepared and felt like they knew what each game required.
This side feels capable of brilliance, but also capable of completely losing its shape for 15-minute stretches.
That’s probably why this season feels so emotionally confusing.
Statistically, this is our best regular season in three years.
Emotionally? It still feels miles away from the standards of those peak Stormers teams and even further away from shaking on the dance floor with the best of Europe.
Correction: As raised by a fellow Stormer, the try tallies in image are incorrect (they included Champions Cup and mixed calendar years with seasons somehow), my apologies for that. Corrected image will be in the comments. Correct Stormers URC tries scored (as per URC website): 2021-2022: 68 2022-2023: 80 2023-2024: 60 2024-2025: 68 2025-2026: 63