Leinster had lost 42-12 on their last visit to the same stadium in April 2024 and were shorn of their British and Irish Lions contingent for this encounter.<\/p>\n
The hosts, themselves, were without Springboks stars Damian Willemse, Manie Libbok and Sacha Feinberg-Mngomezulu, who are on Rugby Championship duty.<\/p>\n
But they dominated territory and possession in the first half and showed plenty of attacking flair, but led by just six points at the break through a combination of stout Leinster defence and errors and a lack of composure as they bore down on the line.<\/p>\n
Matthee landed a sixth-minute penalty after a scrum infringement but was then off target with two further kicks at goal.<\/p>\n
The Stormers fly-half also skewed a drop goal attempt wide as Leinster tried to keep the hosts at bay.<\/p>\n
On 24 minutes Paul de Villiers went over from a rolling maul after a line-out, but after consulting with the Television Match Official (TMO) referee Gianluca Gnecchi disallowed the score for obstruction at the maul by Adre Smith.<\/p>\n
Matthee’s second penalty after 32 minutes made it 6-0 after James Culhane was penalised for not releasing.<\/p>\n
Another flowing move by the Stormers saw wing Seabelo Senatla dive over in the corner, but the score was ruled out for a forward pass in the build-up.<\/p>\n
Matthee split the posts with another penalty two minutes into the second half and soon after scrum-half Ungerer barged over for the first try.<\/p>\n
Sam Prendergast’s crossfield kick was tipped by a Stormers hand and the ball fell to Senatla, who made good ground and offloaded to Ungerer, who showed strength to carry two Leinster players over with him.<\/p>\n
The TMO confirmed the ball had been grounded and Matthee added the conversion.<\/p>\n
The Stormers number 10 added a further penalty and debutant Roos touched down following a maul from a line-out in the 62nd minute as his side cashed in on their superiority. Matthee again kicked the extras.<\/p>\n
That score came immediately after Max Deegan had been sent to the sin-bin after a beleaguered Leinster had conceded two penalties in quick succession in their 22.<\/p>\n
Five minutes later, Tommy O’Brien joined him on the sidelines for a head-high tackle on Senatla, reducing Leo Cullen’s side to 13 men.<\/p>\n
Ackermann crossed for his team’s third try after the tried and tested maul procedure was executed again, Matthee contributing the additional two points to put 30 between the sides.<\/p>\n
The bonus-point score was not long in coming as Matthee burst through for try number four and, ultimately, Leinster were relieved to hear the final whistle.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Leinster had lost 42-12 on their last visit to the same stadium in April 2024 and were shorn…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":162650,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[5903,101,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-162649","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-rugby","8":"tag-rugby","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/162649","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=162649"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/162649\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/162650"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=162649"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=162649"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=162649"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}