Stormers scrape late win

Pieter Louw scored a late try as the Stormers managed to rescue a 19-16 victory against the Lions in Cape Town.

A powerful drive for the line, set up by great play from Andries Bekker, allowed the replacement forward to cross for the match-winning score.

And the visiting side, who finished bottom of the Super Rugby table last season, are likely to feel hard done by after showing a marked improvement for the second week running.

The Lions lost out in a close encounter to defending champions the Bulls last weekend and almost caused another upset after tries from Waylon Murray and Jaco Taute.

The Stormers, who were opening their campaign as they did not play last week, took the lead in the second minute through a Gary van Aswegen penalty.

But the Lions were soon level as Elton Jantjies, whose goal-kicking let them down last time out, slotted through a penalty of his own.

An excellent all-round try then gave the visitors the lead, as hooker Bandise Maku off-loaded to Murray while out on the wing and the centre ran it in.

Wasted

Jantjies failed to add the extras and then wasted a penalty, before the Stormers lost Deon Fourie to the sin bin because of constant infringing from his side.

The Lions enjoyed a healthy amount of possession with the man advantage, but their failure to convert it into points saw them pay with Van Aswegen adding a second penalty to cut the gap to two.

And the Stormers fly-half added another three points to his tally as the home side went into half-time with a 9-8 lead.

The Stormers appeared in much better form when the second half began, but were not able to score a try after laying siege to the opposition line for close to five minutes.

From the resulting clearance, the Lions were awarded another penalty and this time Jantjies made no mistake to put his side back in front.

They extended the advantage just before the 60-minute mark when the ball was spread left after a five-metre scrum and Michael Killian fed inside for Taute to cross the try-line.

Jantjies missed for a third time, however, while at the other end replacement fly-half Peter Grant was straight into the action as he scored a penalty to keep his side in contention.

And with five minutes left the comeback was complete when Louw rounded off a push-over try that saw last season's runners-up seal the win.