Very nominally, the Stormers have something to place in the cobwebbed trophy cabinet at Newlands, as it were, after their clean-sweep performance in the Neo Africa Tri-Series.
Article by Rob Houwing , Sport24
Victories over first the Lions and now the Sharks in a 17-16 Saturday nail-biter meant they topped the table after the pre-season exercise, with the Currie Cup champions surprisingly earning the wooden spoon with a nought-from-two performance.

Trophy? Plate? Shield? Medallion? Certificate? Most of the 20 000-strong, perspiring crowd would not have stuck around long enough to find out whether any presentation of booty even took place.

Nobody with any rugby savvy in this neck of the woods will place too much relevance on this achievement because there were fortuitous elements to the Stormers’ triumph over their great coastal rivals – not least the validity or otherwise of the game-turning touchdown in the 78th minute – and had the Durban visitors held on then all three sides in the tourney would have won one and lost one.

And we’d all have been none the wiser as to their prospects in the fast-looming Super Rugby season.

Mind you, we probably remain so anyway.

It has to be remembered that this was overwhelmingly a “squad-based” few days of experimental activity, with even Saturday’s supposed main event marked by the absence of a few blue-chip Springboks given weekend exit passes from their camps to whoop it up at Butch James’s wedding.

From a Sharks point of view, coach John Plumtree probably got what he wanted in terms of raised intensity after their mini-debacle against the Lions, and his charges mostly bossed the physical exchanges against last season’s big-competition bridesmaids, if you will excuse the extended nuptial imagery.

Stefan Terblanche’s men had looked pretty close to home and dry as they led 16-3 well into the final quarter, and at that point it was a relatively accurate state of affairs.

But then the Stormers did find some late gas and continuity in the gruelling heat – that in itself perhaps a healthy sign for the arduous season ahead? – to run in a brace of late tries and pilfer the game.

By then, it must be said, benches had been raided willy-nilly and this was also a fixture which suffered the infuriating occurrence for a while of uncontested scrums, because the Sharks were caught a tad understaffed in front-row resources.

To a rugby purist who especially loves the grapple and grunt element of the game, this is arguably akin to going to a cricket Test match and seeing them continue with a tennis ball because the harder red one has been smacked into a fast-flowing river and the box of spare balls has been mislaid.

Also not helping the gravitas of the occasion was an annoying jersey clash of sorts: both teams’ shirts had white backs which meant that it was pot-luck assessing who was who at the mass-bodied breakdowns – this kind of thing reeks of pre-planning ineptitude and a lack of the respect to the paying public as well, doesn’t it?

Clearly, though, the optometrist in referee Mark Lawrence came handily to the fore, because he seemed extremely clear in his belief, for the most part, that the Stormers were worthier of penalisation at the rucks and mauls – it is something they will doubtless work on earnestly in training ahead of their start (a week later than most) to Super Rugby proper.

The game was as helter-skelter and structurally naive as you would imagine, this absurdly early in the “winter”, although one aspect that could not be questioned was the whiff of gunpowder and accompanying tetchiness.

Let’s keep in mind that the game was taking place not many months at all after the Currie Cup final meeting, so there was always likely to be some residual needle.

You have to marvel at the way South African sides unfailingly tear into each other, whether it is in Super Rugby, the Currie Cup, a friendly or probably even a skirmish to see who can get to the post-game snack tray more quickly.

So from a “competitive” aspect, both Plumtree and his counterpart Allister Coetzee would have been happy with the relish shown.

That said, how many South African players will be left wholly able-bodied for Antipodean challenges after the avalanche of early derbies in the revamped Super Rugby?

The Sharks tended to shade the set-pieces and collisions when they really mattered, with Beast Mtawarira looking particularly ready for the real deal around the corner: the loosehead prop scrapped fiercely in the general play and also turned the heat on Brok Harris once or twice in the scrums.

Of course he will be involved in a battle royale with the Bulls’ Gurthro Steenkamp for the Bok No 1 jersey in 2011 and seems to want to smack some pegs into the ground as quickly as possible.

There was also a captivating little duel for most prominence on the day between the respective blind-side flanks, the Sharks’ known bruiser Willem Alberts and the home team’s up-and-coming Rynhardt Elstadt.

The Stormers’ attacking plans were hampered in the first half by Ricky Januarie looking a wee bit short of a gallop at scrumhalf in terms of clearing the ball – he got caught in possession a few times – although the chunky little scrapper did remind of his usefulness as a virtual extra loose forward around the fringes.

Really, though, once a heap of No 22s, 23s and 24s – some of them genuine “peripherals”, with respect –have entered the fray, it is hard to keep trying to tick individual boxes or compare protagonists.

Roll on the real thing now!