United Rugby Championship

The Stormers have taken a significant step towards hosting a United Rugby Championship quarter-final, beating Glasgow Warriors at Cape Town Stadium.

There was almost another try, too, as the Stormers resorted to basketball passing, skips and audacious offloads on their way to the line. There was nothing pretty about it as the Warriors bashed away, and eventually it was No 8 Jack Demspey who crashed over from close range. It stayed that way for long enough for the match to be over as a contest long before the final whistle sounded, and by the end there was only one team playing rugby. Libbok dropped the ball when the try was potentially on, but the Stormers had the advantage and he knocked over the resulting penalty from point blank range to give his side a 13-7 lead going into the break. The match saw former Stormers prop Oli Kebble return to the Cape, and there was a roar from the home crowd when Steven Kitshoff, Scarra Ntubeni and Frans Malherbe combined to obliterate the highly-rated Glasgow front row to win the first penalty of the game on 5 minutes. It was far from polished for the Stormers - their lineouts did not function accurately and there were too many missed tackles - but this was another showing of this side's attacking arsenal and their ability to hurt sides from anywhere.

There were wins for Munster, Edinburgh and the Stormers over Ulster, Zebre Parma and Glasgow respectively in the United Rugby Championship on Friday.

Ulster were given hope on 47 minutes when a terrific take by Stuart McCloskey launched an attack which led to a penalty and, in turn, saw Herring touching down from the resulting maul. Registering is free, faster than Jonny May, and also gets you access to commenting, personalisation, and competitions. Glasgow lost Josh McKay to the sin-bin 12 minutes from time to end any lingering hopes of a Warriors fightback, and Roos powered over for the bonus point in the final minute, with Libbok adding the conversion. Carbery missed the conversion. Libbok made it 10-7 from the tee and added a penalty after a subsequent onslaught failed to deliver a second try. But the visitors would not lie down and they tied it with five minutes to go when David Sisi burrowed over between the posts and Tim O’Malley scored an unconventional drop-goal conversion, only for Edinburgh to clinch it when Van der Walt slotted a not rolling away penalty 30 second later.

The Emirates Lions are boosted by the return of captain Burger Odendaal when Connacht visit in the Vodacom United Rugby Championship.

" charset="utf-8">" charset="utf-8"> We have had a good win against the Bulls and a good win against the Stormers. " charset="utf-8">" charset="utf-8"> "Key for us at this stage of the competition is to do well in our upcoming two games at home before we play Dragons away in our final fixture next month." "The big thing for us now is to bounce back and it all starts with Connacht on Saturday. The Lions will look to return to winning ways in Johannesburg having won four home matches on the trot in the URC.

Rikus Pretorius' try just before half time was singled out as the turning point in Friday's match by both Stormers captain Steven Kitshoff and Glasgow ...

“We were saying, ‘Can we get to half time in the lead?’. It was always going to be a tight game, we felt, and it was a tight first half. We have to be able to get out of that cycle quicker. That, for momentum and a mindshift change, was just brilliance.” The hosts would keep that lead for the rest of the game as they scored a further 22 unanswered points. We gave away a couple of silly breakdown penalties. The home side did, however, get off to a shaky start in the first half and trailed 7-3 after Glasgow No 8 Jack Dempsey forced his way over the tryline for the visitors.

Look back on how Connacht earned a first Irish win in South Africa this season, beating the Lions 33-30 in a gripping game in Johannesburg.

Andy Friend's men were in South Africa as they looked to notch a win in the United Rugby Championship.

Connacht have not put their foot down in the same way they did during a blistering opening 10 minutes and much of the play from both sides has been sloppy of late. Connacht go in leading at the break thanks to Cian Prendergast's try which was followed up by a penalty try. Mack Hansen's line break carved out another opening as he then offloaded to Caolin Blade who was eventually hauled down as he advanced towards the try line. Carty adds the extras and Connacht are now in command here. Extras are missed but the Lions are back in with a shout thanks to that score. Connacht escape the Lions' den with a thrilling victory! Extras are added to level the game at 30 points apiece! And just four minutes later, Burger Odendaal showed his awareness not only of that seven point gap but also a gap in the Connacht defence. Under duress and with the home fans' boos ringing in his ears, he missed his attempt. Five minutes later, however, Morne van den Berg's quick tap and run caught a sleepy Connacht defence completely cold and he marched over for the Lions' second try. They had to settle for three points from the boot of Hendrikse on that occasion. They began the first half in blistering fashion as Cian Prendergast found a gap to register their first try after just four minutes.