Sharks v Stormers: Winners and losers as ‘brainfart of epic proportion’ proves costly while Rassie Erasmus ‘left smiling from ear to ear’ with scrum-half cohort
Planet Rugby's take on the winners and losers from the Sharks' win over the Stormers
Following the Sharks’ 36-24 win over the Stormers in round 11 of the United Rugby Championship (URC), here are our key winners and losers from the South African derby.
Winners
Springbok scrum-halves
Rassie Erasmus will be smiling from ear to ear after three of his scrum-half contingent impressed at Kings Park. Cobus Reinach and Grant Williams, the men who so often donned the nine and 22 shirts across the 2025 Test season, both got themselves early tries in eerily similar ways after clever work from short-range, and then Jaden Hendrikse also made a real impact off the bench as well.
This yet again proves just how impressive the depth level is for the Springboks at the moment, when three players can all leave a mark on a game when playing the same position. The battle between them, and others too, will likely rage on until the end of the season and possibly into the next training camp as well, but it’s going to be an enthralling watch if today’s showing is anything to go by.
JP Pietersen
He took the wheel when the Sharks were in treacherous waters, but has since begun to quickly steer them away from trouble.
His promotion to interim head coach, following the earlier-than-planned departure of John Plumtree, has coincided with a rapid turnaround in both performance and results. Performance-wise, they just seemed to have taken everything back to basics and focused on doing simple things well. Clean ball from the ruck, consistent gainline success, a clever kicking game between the half-backs and decent aerial work. It’s not fancy, at all, but it’s effective.
On the results front, the Sharks have also found their way back to the winners’ column, too, securing victories in five of their past seven games in all competitions, and now find themselves eighth in the URC. When he took on the job, they were 14th.
Could he be primed to take on the role full-time come the end of the season?
URC play-off contenders
This latest Stormers loss to the Sharks, their second in consecutive rounds, now sees them fall further into the play-off chasing pack after previously sitting pretty at the top of the table. As a result, Leinster have leapfrogged them with their win over Edinburgh, while Ulster also closed the gap on them after their victory against Cardiff, who themselves closed the gap thanks to a losing bonus point.
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Around that, Munster sit just one point behind the Stormers now, while Glasgow Warriors are eight points clear at the top.
It’s by no means squeaky bum time for the Cape Town-based side, but it’s a lot closer than they were this time two weeks ago.
Losers
Warrick Gelant
He was by no means awful after his introduction off the bench, but his brainfart of epic proportions ultimately proved costly. If he had just dotted the ball down when he got to it, things could have been so, so different.
It also came at a really pivotal time in the game, with the Stormers still very much in the mix at 31-24 and eight minutes left on the clock, but the try just took the game away from his side.
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He will not want to watch it back in the review session next week.
Adré Smith
The towering lock was hooked after just 33 minutes in the defeat today, which will frustrate him. He didn’t really put a foot wrong during his shift, fronting up well in a strong battle in the tight, but the lineout issues his side endured likely led to the call.
Either way, though, he cut a frustrating figure upon his departure.
Stormers discipline
Like last weekend, the Stormers’ discipline really came back to haunt them today. They were pinged a whopping 17 times across the match, coming in various forms too, and saw two of their key men, Paul de Villiers and Ruben van Heerden, sent to the sin-bin too. Those periods of play where they were a man down were also incredibly expensive, with them conceding a total of 21 points in those respective 20 minutes.
While the sheer number of penalties will frustrate John Dobson, it was the fact that a lot of them also came when his side had the upper hand and just gave the Sharks an easy out.