Winger Bryan Habana’s individual brilliance and 14 points from the boot of fullback Joe Pietersen gave the Stormers a 24-19 victory over the Lions in an all-South African Super Rugby match on Saturday.
Habana’s 13th-minute score helped the Stormers race into an early 18-0 lead.
“We’re happy with the win, but we disappointed ourselves with our execution,” captain Jean de Villiers said. “For 50 minutes, the Lions had the better of us.”
The Stormers picked up their fourth win on the trot after a hat-trick of home victories and they remain the only unbeaten side in the 15-team competition.
The Cape Town-based side went in front after two minutes when burly hooker Tiaan Liebenberg drove over from close range.
Habana quickly added a second touchdown, showing great pace to dive on his own kick-and-chase after being freed down the left touchline from an attacking scrum.
Pietersen missed the conversion, but made amends with a 21st-minute penalty that moved him past the 50-point mark for the season, before a second penalty five minutes later made it 18-0.
The injury-plagued Lions, South Africa’s domestic Currie Cup champions, were stung into action and scrumhalf Tian Meyer dived over under the posts, before flyhalf Butch James converted.
James added two penalties in the 44th and 47th minutes, and then booted a third on the hour.
The Stormers, who had spent much of the second period on the back foot, finally added to their first-half points tally when Pietersen expertly curled in a touchline penalty with 12 minutes left.
The same player booted another penalty from 50m in the 79th minute to seal the victory.
“We basically lost the game in the first 20 minutes,” Lions skipper Doppies la Grange said.
Bayer 04 Leverkusen go into today’s match at TSG 1899 Hoffenheim stung from their first league defeat in 16 months. Leverkusen were beaten 3-2 at home by RB Leipzig before the international break, the first loss since May last year for the reigning league and cup champions. While any defeat, particularly against a likely title rival, would have disappointed coach Xabi Alonso, the way in which it happened would be most concerning. Just as they did in the Supercup against VfB Stuttgart and in the league opener to Borussia Moenchengladbach, Leverkusen scored first, but were pegged back. However, while Leverkusen rallied late to
If all goes well when the biggest marathon field ever gathered in Australia races 42km through the streets of Sydney on Sunday, World Marathon Majors (WMM) will soon add a seventh race to the elite series. The Sydney Marathon is to become the first race since Tokyo in 2013 to join long-established majors in New York, London, Boston, Berlin and Chicago if it passes the WMM assessment criteria for the second straight year. “We’re really excited for Sunday to arrive,” race director Wayne Larden told a news conference in Sydney yesterday. “We’re prepared, we’re ready. All of our plans look good on
The lights dimmed and the crowd hushed as Karoline Kristensen entered for her performance. However, this was no ordinary Dutch theater: The temperature was 80°C and the audience naked apart from a towel. Dressed in a swimsuit and to the tune of emotional music, the 21-year-old Kristensen started her routine, performed inside a large sauna, with a bed of hot rocks in the middle. For a week this month, a group of wellness practitioners, called “sauna masters,” are gathering at a picturesque health resort in the Netherlands to compete in this year’s Aufguss world sauna championships. The practice takes its name from a
When details from a scientific experiment that could have helped clear Russian figure skater Kamila Valieva landed at the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), the leader of the organization’s reaction was unequivocal: “We have to stop that urgently,” he wrote. No mention of the test ever became public and Valieva’s defense at the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) went on without it. What effect the information could have had on Valieva’s case is unclear, but without it, the skater, then 15 years old, was eventually disqualified from the 2022 Winter Olympics after testing positive for a banned heart medication that would later