Stormers see off Bulls to cement top spot in SA's URC conference

In what was a North-South derby of narrow margins and high stakes, the Stormers were the fortunate 19-17 victors over the Bulls at a sunny Cape Town Stadium on Saturday afternoon.

With the teams separated by a point and a place on the log with the tournament reaching the pointy end, the achieving of the result was the most important part and not how it was achieved.

The win meant the Stormers moved to 47 points and four points clear at the top of the South African conference, while also moving to fifth on the overall log.

Despite the perfect conditions, entertainment was far from being the premium, even though the tries scored by the sides were of the highest quality

RECAP | United Rugby Championship: Stormers v Bulls

There also was late drama in the game where Damian Willemse's 71st-minute penalty was responded to with a 73rd-minute Ruan Nortje try that was eventually disallowed because of Hacjivah Dayimani's high tackle on Kurt-Lee Arensde that saw the loose-forward being yellow-carded.

The Bulls did eventually score through Elrigh Louw a minute later, but those kinds of dramatic moments are part and parcel of fraught derbies.

Those two moments, plus the brilliant tries from Hacijvah Dayimani and Canan Moodie, were outliers in a game of close quarter entanglements that the forwards relished.

That the first points of the game came through Manie Libbok's 15th-minute penalty spoke volumes of the tense nature of the fixture.

Chris Smith responded for the Bulls in the 27th minute, but on the stroke of half-time, just when the Bulls were on the cusp of scoring, they coughed up the ball.

The hosts moved the ball smartly through the phases, marched up the field, and three minutes after the half-time hooter, Dayimani cantered over for