Cardiff reached the United Rugby Championship play-offs for the first time ever after a sensational 22-16 bonus-point victory over the Stormers at the Arms Park.<\/p>\n
Corniel van Zyl’s side will be Wales’ only representative in next season’s Investec Champions Cup after outplaying the in-form Stormers.<\/p>\n
After a difficult start to the game Cardiff bounced back strongly with No 8 Taine Basham and outside-half Ioan Lloyd outstanding. Lloyd also contributed two further points from the kicking tee.<\/p>\n
Andre Smith scored the Stormers’ only try with Sacha Feinberg-Mngomezulu kicking five points.<\/p>\n
Tries from Jacob Beetham (twice), Tom Bowen and Lloyd got the home side over the line.<\/p>\n
Cardiff were superb throughout, with Lloyd putting Beetham over for the opening try via a lovely cross-kick.<\/p>\n
Lloyd’s pass released Bowen down the wing a few minutes later with the Wales U20s wing showcasing his pace to score out wide.<\/p>\n
With the first-half drawing to a close Lloyd finished tremendously well out wide to give the hosts a 17-10 lead at the interval.<\/p>\n
Cardiff carried on where they left off after the break as Lloyd put Beetham over for his second try out wide.<\/p>\n
The Stormers threw everything at Cardiff during the closing stages of the game but the Welsh club’s defence remained intact as they claimed a famous victory.<\/p>\n
Cardiff: Cam Winnett; Jacob Beetham, Ben Thomas, Rory Jennings, Tom Bowen; Ioan Lloyd, Johan Mulder; Danny Southworth, Liam Belcher (capt), Javan Sebastian, George Nott, Rory Thornton, James Botham, Dan Thomas, Taine Basham.<\/p>\n
Replacements: Dafydd Hughes, Rhys Barratt, Keiron Assiratti, Alun Lawrence, Evan Lloyd, Ellis Bevan, Steff Emanuel, Leigh Halfpenny.<\/p>\n
Stormers: Damian Willemse; Sileiman Hartzenberg, Wandisile Simelane, Jonathan Roche, Leolin Zas; Sacha Feinberg-Mngomezulu, Imad Khan; Ntuthuko Mchunu, Andre-Hugo Venter, Neethling Fouche (capt), Adre Smith, Ruben van Heerden, Paul de Villiers, Ben-Jason Dixon, Evan Roos.<\/p>\n
Replacements: JJ Kotze, Oli Kebble, Zac Porthen, Salmaan Moerat, Marcel Theunissen, Keke Morabe, Stefan Ungerer, Jurie Matthee.<\/p>\n
Referee: Andrew Brace (Ireland)<\/p>\n
Live updates below:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Cardiff reached the United Rugby Championship play-offs for the first time ever after a sensational 22-16 bonus-point victory…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":586370,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[10579,5903,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-586369","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-rugby","tag-cardiff-rugby","tag-rugby","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/586369","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=586369"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/586369\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/586370"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=586369"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=586369"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=586369"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}