Why Did the Stormers Lose a Game They Basically Won?

Nah, but listen Chillers, somebody needs to explain to me how you dominate a team for eighty minutes and still walk away with nothing to show for it. That’s basically what happened at Cape Town Stadium and I’m still confused.

The All Blacks came into this ‘greatest rivalry’ opener already down a man — they allegedly lost loose forward Wallace Sititi on the eve of the match, according to thesouthafrican.com. That’s not a small loss, that’s a whole plan needing a rewrite the night before kickoff.

So why did the Stormers still leave empty-handed?

Here’s where it gets annoying. According to iol.co.za, the Stormers actually exposed real flaws in the All Blacks’ set piece — scrums, defensive shape, the technical stuff that wins you respect in the changeroom. And yet, per iol.co.za, the visitors still found a way to prevail.

Honest, that’s the most South African sports outcome there is. We do the hard work, we win the moral victory, and then somebody else takes home the actual result. Sounds familiar, doesn’t it Chillers?

Who actually deserves the applause here?

One name keeps coming up and it’s Deon Fourie. IOL straight up said the man deserves a braai in his honour for what he brought to that scrum battle. And I’m not going to argue with that, because when your set piece is the headline on a losing day, somebody in that pack was doing something right.

Let’s be realistic though — a stellar individual performance doesn’t rewrite a scoreboard. It just gives us something nice to talk about while we’re mad about the result. That’s the trade-off, my friend.

Was this really a loss, or a warning shot?

I keep going back and forth on this one. On one hand, a loss is a loss, and ‘we exposed their flaws’ doesn’t put points on the board — that’s not how rugby, or life, works.

On the other hand, if you strip a touring team of a key loose forward the night before and they still need everything they’ve got to survive against a side that’s out-scrumming them? That’s not a comfortable win for the All Blacks either, if the reports are accurate. That’s a team that got away with one.

But I could be wrong — maybe I’m just doing what we always do after a Stormers loss, finding the silver lining because the alternative is too painful to sit with. Eish.

The verdict, Chillers

Moral victories don’t go on trophies, but they do tell you who’s building something. The Stormers exposed cracks in a team that’s supposed to be the standard. That matters for next time, even if it did nothing for this time.

So tell me — was this a proud Stormers performance worth celebrating, or just another ‘so close’ story we’re going to be telling ourselves all season? Bring them all, dog, let’s hear it in the comments.