Queensland Reds flyhalf Quade Cooper kicked 14 points and center Mike Harris scored a late try in a 19-6 win on Saturday which ended the Stormers’ unbeaten Super rugby run.
It was the visitors’ sixth win from seven matches and takes them to the top of the Australian conference in the southern hemisphere provincial competition.
The match never lived up to its billing as a free-flowing encounter between two of the competition’s best back divisions and instead was an error-strewn battle of attrition.
Photo: Reuters
The Reds capitalized on the home team’s poor discipline, which resulted in forwards Duane Vermeulen and Deon Fourie collecting yellow cards for punching and tripping respectively.
The Australians opened the scoring with a penalty by flyhalf Cooper in the 25th minute after Stormers prop Wicus Blaauw attempted another trip on scrumhalf and man-of-the-match Will Genia.
Cooper made it 6-0 on the half hour and then 9-0 three minutes later when home flanker Francois Louw went off his feet at a ruck.
The Stormers were dealt a blow before kickoff when veteran skipper Jean de Villiers failed a late fitness test.
The disjointed home side missed de Villiers’ calming influence in midfield and it was left to metronomic kicker Peter Grant to get last year’s finalists on the board three minutes before the break with his first penalty.
Grant made it 9-6 in the 58th minute before the Stormers were hamstrung again with 13 minutes left when Fourie was -yellow-carded for a trip.
Cooper capitalized on the indiscretion by slotting his fourth penalty and Harris barged over with seven minutes left to end the home team’s resistance.
SHARKS 27, LIONS 3
REUTERS, DURBAN
The Sharks snapped a three-game losing streak by beating the Lions 27-3 in a disappointing all-South African Super rugby match at Kings Park in Durban on Saturday.
The Sharks, coming off consecutive defeats by the Chiefs, Crusaders and Stormers, were full value for their win as they ran in four unanswered tries against the Lions, who have now lost seven of their eight matches this season.
Neither team could gain ascendency in the first quarter as a plethora of handling errors and an inability to hold on to the ball resulted in a disjointed contest.
The teams gave up 12 turnovers and eight handling errors in the first half, but the Sharks, who -adopted a high-tempo ball-in-hand approach, eventually found their rhythm to take control.
The Lions suffered a setback when fullback James Kamana was carried off the field with a broken ankle after half an hour.
The Lions opened the scoring with an penalty from flyhalf Elton Jantjies, but the visitors were then forced to defend and the home side struck in the 15th minute when fluent passing sent fullback Louis Ludik over in the corner for a try.
The Sharks struck again before halftime when a turnover enabled winger JP Pietersen to break out from his own half and the ball found its way to flanker Willem Alberts, who showed a good turn of pace and impressive power to dive over the line for a converted try.
With the halftime siren having sounded the Sharks nabbed their third try when flyhalf Jacques-Louis Potgieter put in a pinpoint crossfield kick, which Pietersen gathered and went over to give the Sharks a 17-3 lead at the interval.
The hosts scored the only points of a largely forgettable second half, thanks to a penalty from Potgieter and the bonus-point try in the dying seconds after a tap penalty from scrumhalf Charl McLeod.
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