April 20 (Reuters) – The Stormers went top of the Super
Rugby standings on Friday after an impressive performance by
flyhalf Peter Grant led them to a 23-13 victory over the
defending champions Queensland Reds in Brisbane.
The Reds enjoyed plenty of ball at Suncorp Stadium but were
smothered by a stiff Stormers defence who rebounded from last
week’s loss to the Crusaders to make it seven wins from eight
games this year.
The two-try win moved them ahead of the Waikato Chiefs, who
can return to the summit when they play away to the Sharks on
Saturday. Queensland are second in the Australian Conference
after their fourth defeat in eight matches.
“Yeah, I’m very happy with the performance after last week
we came back with a good win,” Stormers captain Duane Vermeulen
said in a pitchside interview.
“We wanted to take them on physically and another thing we
really wanted to do was counter-attack a little bit more and I
think we pulled it off.”
The Reds’ gameplan was not helped by early injuries to their
backline.
Flyhalf Sam Lane was helped from the field in the fifth
minute after what appeared to be a serious knee injury with
centre Ben Tapuai following a little lter.
The Reds have been without first-choice flyhalf Quade Cooper
all season after he injured his knee playing for Australia at
the World Cup.
“We lost our 10 in the first two minutes and our 13 five
minutes later so we just don’t seem to be able to play with the
backline we train with,” Reds coach Ewan McKenzie bemoaned.
Continued…
