Stormers captain Ruhan Nel unconcerned about yellow card 'trend'

The Cape Town franchise was the favourite to secure all five log points against the visitors. But the Irish side had other ideas, remaining competitive throughout before sealing the victory with an intercept try in the dying embers of the match.

2023 Rugby World Cup final hero Deon Fourie was shown a yellow card in the opening stanza of the match and Connacht scored in the corner while he was off.

The wake of a loss is the prime time for excuses to be found, and the media pressed Nel after the match about the Stormers' continued ill-discipline, which he brushed off.  

"œI don't think it's a point of discussion in the team," said the centre.

"Ideally, we don't want to leak yellow cards. It puts us under pressure and probably makes us a bit softer defensively as well by not over-committing at the breakdowns or enforcing ourselves on the front line, especially against a side like Connacht with their sophisticated attack.

"We can't fault Brannas [Deon Fourie] on that. He was very passive in that tackle and probably could've bent a bit more, but I don't think there was anything malicious there.

"When it happened, we knew it would just be a yellow card purely because of the laws of the game, but no, we didn't feel under pressure or had panic stages for the 10 minutes he was off the field."

And the stats support Nel. While not being the best, the Stormers are ranked seventh for discipline in the URC. They've earned 12 yellow cards, but have given away the second least amount of penalties so far. Current URC champions Leinster have already racked up 15 yellow cards and two reds.  

Nel went on to say that defence coach Norman Laker prepares the squad for losing personnel in training drills.

"Coach Norms has done well, where multiple times during training sessions we would be 13 v 15, defending with two guys less," he continued.

"We actually put ourselves in a position to cope with a yellow card, or should we leak more [players] than that.

"The first try [Connacht] scored was probably due to the fact that we were short in numbers, where they opted for the corner. It was also touch-and-go there for us."

The Stormers next host former champions Glasgow Warriors in the Mother City on Saturday.

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