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Last season, the Stormers were rubbish. They finished 21 log points off top spot with a points difference nearly 200 worse than Leinster and surrendered meekly in an away quarter final to Glasgow. Their Scrum was a liability – neither producing clean ball nor winning penalties – and they endlessly self-sabotaged with forced offloads that usually ended up going to ground. When Western Province finished rock bottom of the Currie Cup with 1 win from 7, the coaches were under significant pressure.
And now? Top of the league with no losses in any competition, the best defence of any club side in the world and selling out their 50,000 seater stadium. So, what are the Stormers doing this season that has resulted in such a drastic turnaround? In this article we will deep dive the stats to reveal the fascinating (and surprising) answers…
The Cape Town teams of old were known for their dazzling attacking rugby, but this season they are all about defence. The Stormers are averaging a simply remarkable 1.4 tries conceded per game, are the only club side in the world to have conceded less than 100 points in the league and have nilled their opposition their opposition twice, including a stunning 35-0 over Leinster in round 1.
The secret? Well, sometimes rugby isn’t complicated: they stop their opposition from crossing the gainline. Stormers have the best gainline denial of any club in the world bar none at 36% and the best dominant hit percentage of any side in the URC. As an example, of the 72 tackles the Stormers made against the Bulls, 12 of them were dominant – a phenomenal hit rate (if you’ll pardon the pun). Even when they do miss a tackle, only 19% of the time does it lead to a try scored – again the best in the world.
The Stormers attack is best described as functional rather than phenomenal. With 29 tries in 8 games, they rank 6th in the league for crossing the try line. In some stats they are still poor: their offloading is the least successful in club rugby and their ability to convert linebreaks into tries is the 2nd worst in the league. Total linebreaks are also relatively low with just 56 compared to Leinster, Ulster or the Lions who have all made over 80 each. They rarely start games strongly either, scoring just 28% of their tries in the first half – once again the lowest percentage of anyone.
Where they excel is once again in their physicality: Stormers have the 2nd best carry dominance in the world. Meanwhile, they have the best tackle evasion in the URC at 24%. They are the least likely in the league to play wider than 1st receiver, but when that first receiver is either Sacha Feinberg-Mngomezulu or Damian Willemse you can forgive them for not passing it and having a run instead!
One could almost describe the Stormers attack as minimalist; not only do they not play particularly wide but they don’t play for particularly long either with just 8% of their possessions going beyond 5 phases – the least in the URC. In fact, a massive 59% of their tries come off first phase and they are the 2nd most likely team in the league to score off turnovers.
Once the phase count does start to build up, they appear to be willing to take a risk to break things up – they average just 23 touches between errors, the 3rd lowest in the league (2nd placed Glasgow are nearly twice as good with 41). What the Stormers appear to be good at is knowing where on the pitch to take those risks. This is not only reflected in the low number of tries they conceded but also their 22m exit success being a whopping 96% - the best of any side in the URC. The downside of this is that just 10% of their tries originate in their own half and their metres gained is well over 1,000 fewer than most of their rivals – but that is a small price to pay for such defensive excellence.
Although it is not directly a team attacking stat, one area of weakness when it comes to points scoring for the Stormers is goal kicking. Their success rate when taking shots at goal is a troubling 67% and they have missed all 4 drop goal attempts this season – including a very poor effort by Willemse against the Bulls – no other team has attempted more than 2 drop goals.
This suggests that they should actually have scored even more points than they already have – a theory backed up by them averaging less than 2 points from their 13 22m entries against the Bulls. Usually, than many entries should have resulted in 25+ points.
The set piece is where the Stormers are truly elite. They have won 97% of scrums on their own feed and 12% of scrums on opposition feed – no team boasts a better combined win rate. They have won an incredible 35 scrum penalties in 8 games – 8 more penalties than any other side in the URC.
Their lineout win rate is also the best in the league whilst their number of lineout steals has been slowly creeping up – again contributing to their class leading defence. A large part of the credit for this has to go to Andre-Hugo Venter, who tops the URC for lineout takes with 76 – well over half of the Stomers’ total lineouts so far.
That lineout success then allows them to unleash their strongest weapon of all: their driving maul. The Stormers gain the most metres per maul of any side in the world at 3.6, nearly 15% better than anyone else. This is a major reason why 72% of their tries originate from set piece – right up their with the highest rates in the world.
Again, though, there is room for improvement. The Stormers convert just 38% of their set pieces within 10m of the opposition try line into tries scored. This is not the worst in the league, but there are several teams achieving upwards of 45% or 50%. Therefore, we can once again say that the Stormers could be scoring even more points than they currently are.
The one ‘set piece’ where the Stormers are struggling is restarts, where they have the worst success rate in the world at just 71%.
This is the Stormer’s secret weapon: they are incredibly smart at avoiding giving away penalties. With just 69 infringements so far this season, they are the least penalised team in the URC and their 4 yellow cards so far is the 3rd lowest in the league.
Being the team that is mostly going forward is a great way to prevent referees from penalising you, but what makes the low penalty count even more impressive is the Stormers do give the referees opportunities to blow their whistles in other areas. For instance, they are the 2nd most likely team in the league to jackal, averaging just 26 rucks between jackal attempts compared to 56 for Leinster and Glasgow. Law of averages suggest that they should therefore giveaway more penalties for this high-risk strategy… but they don’t.
15 of their 69 penalties have come at scrum time, only the Bulls have conceded fewer, yet the Stormers have won a dozen more scrum penalties than the Bulls. The key to this phenomenal scrumming performance is knowing which scrums to target and where on the field to pull the trigger and go for the penalty. This relates back to the previous point about knowing which areas of the pitch to attack from and once again shows how smart the Stormers are around the field.
What these stats show is that when the Stormers revealed their new logo during the off-season, it was more than just a superficial rebranding. It was a signal that the entire organisation had undergone a deep self-reflection, and serious changes had been made to every aspect of the team.
Last season, the Stormers were over reliant on their individuals. Sacha, Willemse, Mannie Libbok, Evan Roos and Warwick Gelant were taking the ball forward in hope rather than expectation. This season, they are notable for the lack of stand-out individuals. Other than Jurie Matthee topping the points scoring charts (and, surprisingly, being 2nd in the tackle evasion stakes) and Ruben Van Heerden having 100% tackle success, no Stormers player tops any of the Hollywood statistics.
This is a team built from the ground up – elite level set piece, phenomenal discipline, knowing the right areas of the field in which to take risks and unmatchable levels of physicality. What’s more, the scary thing for everyone else is they could and should be scoring even more points than they currently are.
If rumours are to be believed, they are also on an aggressive recruitment drive and have several top level Springboks in their sites. If they pull those off, and maintain these level of statistics, we could be witnessing the start of a dynasty…