Stormers wary of the Dragons despite past dominance – Damian Willemse

2026-03-19 - 13:30

The Stormers are wary of the Dragons despite their previous dominance over the Welsh outfit, as they prepare to host them in their United Rugby Championship (URC) match at the Cape Town Stadium on Sunday. The Stormers have never lost to the Dragons, winning all four of their URC games, and have picked up bonus point wins in three of them. Their only non-bonus point win came in season one when they beat the Dragons 24-10 in Wales, while their closest result was in season two, winning 34-26 in Gqeberha. Their two most recent encounters have been big wins for the Cape side, with them thumping Dragons 44-21 in Wales and 48-12 in Cape Town, and it wouldn’t be surprising if they produced another blowout result against the Welsh side this weekend. But Stormers utility star Damian Willemse warned against them being overconfident, despite their return to form with an impressive win over the Bulls this past Saturday, and said they would have to be at their best. Bulls result “The Bulls result was massive and very important for us to get the win to put ourselves in a good position again,” said Willemse on Tuesday. “But we don’t want to hang on too much to that game. There are six (pool stage) matches left in the URC, so we’re getting to the business end and looking forward to a big one against the Dragons. They are number one in defence this year in the URC, so they are a quality outfit.” The Dragons are currently languishing at 14th on the URC log, while the Stormers are up in second and in a massive battle for a top four spot to secure a home playoff come the knockouts. They will thus be eager to pick up a full house of points, and a big win to improve their points differential, as currently that is all that separates them from third on the log Ulster and fourth placed Leinster. But Willemse said that they can’t be focusing on any of that, and had to just look at the task at hand against the Dragons. “We are going in the right direction. But it is the Dragons this week and we can’t look too far ahead. We need to dial it back to make sure we have our processes in order to put out another big performance (on Saturday),” said Willemse.