Following a 33-7 victory for the Stormers over Ulster, here are our five takeaways from the United Rugby Championship clash at DHL Stadium on Saturday.

The top line

The Stormers produced a mistake-ridden display but still proved too strong for a struggling Ulster outfit as they secured a bonus-point victory in Cape Town.

It was certainly a frustrating opening half-hour for the hosts, who had numerous chances that they failed to take as the visitors took the lead through Dave McCann’s try.

However, the Stormers would finally finish off some moves, scoring three times either side of the interval. Two of those came before the break as JD Schickerling and Paul de Villiers touched down, before Evan Roos ran fully 70 metres to score a breakaway effort.

That gave them the breathing space they needed as, although Ulster never stopped working, the hosts were always in controlled and sealed the victory late on through Ruhan Nel and Yaqeen Ahmed.

Handling

Talk about shooting yourself in the foot. The Stormers certainly did not struggle to create chances but keeping their composure was an issue when it came to applying the finishing touch. Whether it was simply composure or a mindset problem driving by complacency – knowing they were facing an weakened Ulster – they let numerous opportunities quite literally slip through their fingers.

Their work leading to the line break was often sublime, with Adre Smith, Ahmed and Markus Muller all producing some outstanding moments, but those opportunities broke down with some poor handling. It was the bane of their performance, especially in the opening period with their efforts not leading to anything tangible until the final eight minutes of the first half.

However, when the hosts finally got the score their dominance deserved, it showed what John Dobson’s men can do when they get it right. In complete contrast to the opening half-hour, the off-loads stuck and Schickerling managed to cross the whitewash and get his side on the board. From then on, they were better and controlled the rest of the match, even if it was nowhere near perfect.

Set-piece

A significant reason for Ulster’s inability to take advantage of the Stormers’ profligacy was the home side’s excellence up front. It was always going to be tough against Springboks duo Ntuthuko Mchunu and Wilco Louw, who have both been named in Rassie Erasmus’ Nations Championship squad, and they regularly sent the Irish province’s scrum into reverse.

That, allied with their maul superiority, enabled the Cape Town outfit to march themselves up the field when in their own half. One such occasion from their own five-metre line saw a sequence of scrum, penalty, maul, penalty and maul, penalty, which took them into the opposition danger zone, eventually leading to a yellow card for visiting prop Keynan Knox.

With that sort of platform, you are doing well to lose that game, but it said a lot about the Stormers’ handing issues, as well as the sheer resilience and work ethic of Ulster, that it remained a closely contested match for 70-odd minutes.

Understrength Ulster unravel

It became a blowout at the end but, as mentioned, they were very much in the contest for most of the match and could ultimately feel proud about elements of their game. However, their second-half mistakes proved costly as the physical dominance the Stormers exerted eventually told on the away side.

They were without a host of players on Saturday with Tom Stewart, Nick Timoney, Nathan Doak, Jamie Benson, Tom O’Toole, Jacob Stockdale, James McNabney and Robert Baloucoune all absent, so they competed impressively for the most part. However, it is still another game without a win for a side who were expected to build on their improved 2025/26 campaign.

That lack of confidence and individual quality was evident in the latter stages as their mistakes were finally punished by the Stormers and left Ulster with a record that reads three defeats and two draw. Now that they have got this difficult South African tour out of the way, Richie Murphy’s men can perhaps start to rise the standings when the URC season resumes in December, but they have got a lot of work to do.

Springboks bolter watch

There has been plenty of talk about the number of youngsters in the South African squad. It is not just one or two who have made the wider training group but four players who were featuring for the U20s earlier this year. Three of those were involved on Saturday in the form of Ahmed, Muller and Riley Norton.

Ahmed and Muller started – Norton came off the bench – and they showed glimpses of their talent. The former certainly looks the real deal, with his running game a constant threat to the opposition defence while his cross-field kick for Nel’s try was inch-perfect. Of course, there were decision-making issues, which resulted in mistakes, but there is certainly a top-class fly-half in there once he irons out those flaws.

As for Muller, there was an odd debate around his inclusion online, with some fans claiming that only a white player who is that inexperienced would be picked by South Africa, ignoring the fact that Ahmed and before him, Vusi Moyo, have both been included in the Boks squad this year. Moving away from that nonsense, the centre, like his fly-half, had his moments, but it was a solid rather than spectacular shift.