The Tri-Series, one of the pre-curser events leading up to the Super Rugby Competition has kicked off and the first result is in!

The Tri-Series is warm-ups played between the DHL Stormers, The MTN Lions and the Sharks.

The Stormers beat the Lions 15 / 0 in the first encounter, played tonight at Newlands, Cape Town.

The Stormers scored 3 unconverted tries, through Jean de Villiers, Schalk Burger and an after-the-hooter try by Danie Poolman.

Sport24 reports as follows:

As the scoreline will suggest, the Stormers defensive system was one of the highlights of the evening from the host team’s viewpoint, and the Lions will come to Cape Town for their second Super Rugby fixture of the season on 26 February not having scored at Newlands in their last two matches. They were also whitewashed at the venue in the Currie Cup last year.

The Stormers scored three tries to nil on a night where none of the kickers could find their target and in a game which, understandably for this stage of the season, was uninspiring and would have sent many of the 12 000 patrons to the turnstiles afterwards convinced that rugby is not a sport that should be played in January.

However those who came to Newlands anticipating some sort of revelation would have been pleased in one respect – the Stormers decision to give young Gary van Aswegan a go at flyhalf in this match paid off handsomely.

The former Western Province under-21 star missed his first two kicks at goal, but he did just about everything else right. His decision making, which had been spoken about quite a bit in the build-up, was mostly spot on, so was his field kicking. He distributed well and also made a couple of handy little half breaks which damaged the Lions defensive system and created opportunities for those around him.

Most importantly, he did not look overawed by the occasion and stood up well in the physical exchanges. It might be premature at this stage to suggest that he is the Western Cape answer to Patrick Lambie and Elton Jantjes, the two excellent young flyhalves blooded by the Sharks and Lions respectively last year.

But he did make a good enough start to suggest that there might be more depth for the Stormers at pivot than many may have anticipated during the off-season. The back-up to Peter Grant is a key area of concern to the Stormers, so in that sense the hosts should have been highly encouraged by what Van Aswegan was able to deliver.

Although they always seemed to have fewer attackers than the Stormers had defenders, the Lions did have their chances. Indeed, there was a period in the first half when they did everything but score, such as when Michael Killian went over in the right hand corner only to have been adjudged by referee Jonathan Kaplan to have lost the ball forward. Then there was the Andre Pretorius chip into the ingoal area that bounced towards Lions hands before being knocked over the dead ball line.

The best aspect of the Lions play was their scrum, which gave the Stormers unit plenty to mull over. But they will be hoping their attacking game, such an impressive feature of their play in the Currie Cup last year, will become more accurate and co-ordinated in the weeks remaining till the Super Rugby kick-off.

The two Stormers tries that determined the outcome came in the early minutes of both halves. The first was scored by Jean de Villiers who shrugged off a missed tackle after he had been set up by a long pass from Van Aswegan that found Juan de Jongh. And the second gave what proved to be a false indication that the Stormers would breathe some life into a stop-start game when skipper Schalk Burger touched down off a forward drive soon after the restart.

You got the impression that most of the experienced players were understandably playing well within themselves, but Andries Bekker and Tiaan Liebenberg did show in patches that they are hungry after their long injury enforced lay-offs.

The Stormers finished off the match with a well worked try off a tap penalty inside their own half which was rounded off by former under-21 wing Danie Poolman on the stroke of full-time. The next match in the Neo Africa series will be between the Lions and Sharks here on Tuesday night.