Undermanned and overpowered, Melbourne Rebels were left without the players to beat the Stormers at AAMI Park on Saturday night. The home side lost full back Mike Harris before kickoff after he was unable to overcome an ankle injury while locks Lopeti Timani and Luke Jones were both lost to concussions before half-time leaving flankers Sean McMahon, Culum Retallick and Scott Fuglistaller to deputise.
Melbourne's response was brave despite being dominated at scrums as the repaired AAMI Park held strong and the Stormers controlled the contest.
Rebels' five-eight Jack Debreczeni's try before the hour tied scores at 31-31 but Fuglistaller was forced off for 10 minutes after a yellow card and the South Africans' conjured four late tries to seal a 57-31 win. Stormers five-eighth Jean-Luc DuPlessis was instrumental for his side kicking four of four penalties and five of seven conversions plus scoring a try.
The Rebels first try came when full back Reece Hodge found Debreczeni whose flick pass put Tom English into space before he drew in the defence and found Sefa Naivalu who burst to the line .
Halfback Ben Meehan sneaked out the blindside of a maul and chanced his legs at the corner flag, he won that race and scored the second try which Debreczeni converted to make it 14-7 on 16 minutes. But the Stormers struck back minutes later as Du Plessis' high chip kick caused two Rebels' to run into each other with the ball comically falling to the Stormers' five-eighth who ran in to score.
Prop Vincent Koch barged over to score soon after and see his side ahead 23-14. Debreczeni connected on a penalty kick from near halfway as the lead was cut to 23-17.
The home side kept attacking and Jonah Placid bravely scored in the right corner on 51 minutes but took a blow to the face and had to be replaced as Debreczeni's conversion made it 24-23 to the Rebels.
But that lead couldn't hold as Du Plessis kicked his fourth penalty goal then minutes later scrappy lock Eben Etzebeth made full use of a turnover and forced his way in to score as the Stormers led 31-24.
The Rebels had nothing to lose and Tom English's audacious pick and go made a line break which he almost turned into a try before passing to Debreczeni who scored under the posts to make it 31-31.
Fuglistaller was shown a yellow card on the hour for pulling down the Stormers' maul, a move which stopped a certain try, after back to back penalties the Stormers' scrum surged and halfback Nic Groom ran off the back of it and scored the try to see his club up 36-31.
Stormers centre Damian De Allende scored next to post then Zas made his intercept try before a post siren try from the scrum gave them the bonus point.
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