The Stormers beat Ulster 33-7 in Round 5 of the Vodacom United Rugby Championship on Saturday, scoring five tries to one and taking the full five log points.
Yaqeen Ahmed scored the last of those tries, landed three conversions and put Ruhan Nel over with a cross-field kick. Sacha Feinberg-Mngomezulu was rested, and the flyhalf jersey went nowhere near quiet.
Ulster scored first. David McCann went over for the opening try and Jack Murphy converted it, and for a quarter of an hour the visitors led 7-0 with the home side still looking for a way through.
That changed when prop Keynan Knox was sent to the bin. The Stormers scored twice in the ten minutes he was off the field, and the game never came back to Ulster after it.
JD Schickerling got the first, converted by Ahmed. Paul de Villiers got the second, charging down a kick and claiming the loose ball, and with the conversion missed the Stormers went in 12-7 up at the break.
How The Stormers Beat Ulster After Going Seven Points Down
Evan Roos settled it early in the second half. A loose Ulster pass went to ground, Roos picked it up and ran clear, and Ahmed’s conversion made it 19-7.
Ten minutes from time Ahmed put up a cross-kick and Nel took it for the fourth try. A side that scores four or more tries in a match collects an extra log point on top of the four for the win, which is where the five comes from.
Ahmed then scored the fifth himself in the closing minutes, and the conversion took it to 33-7.
How the scoreboard moved:
- 0-7 — David McCann try, converted by Jack Murphy
- 7-7 — JD Schickerling try, converted by Yaqeen Ahmed
- 12-7 — Paul de Villiers try, conversion missed (half-time)
- 19-7 — Evan Roos try, converted by Yaqeen Ahmed
- 26-7 — Ruhan Nel try, converted by Yaqeen Ahmed
- 33-7 — Yaqeen Ahmed try, converted
Five tries, four conversions, one miss. Sam Grove-White of Scotland had the whistle.
Yaqeen Ahmed’s Second Big Week In The United Rugby Championship
This is the second Saturday running that Ahmed has decided a Stormers match. Last weekend against the Scarlets at the same ground, with the scores level at 40-40 and the game gone either way, he scored two late tries to win it 52-40.
Against Ulster he did it differently. One try of his own, three conversions, and the kick that gave Nel the bonus point.
The Stormers have now won four home matches in a row.
Ulster Are Still Looking For A First Win This Season
Ulster have played five and won none in the 2026-27 United Rugby Championship. They came to Cape Town off a 26-34 loss to the Bulls in Pretoria the previous weekend, and they leave South Africa with nothing from either trip.
There were returns in the side for Rob Herring and James Hume, with Herring packing down alongside Eric O’Sullivan and Knox in the front row. McCann led them.
Juarno Augustus started at No. 8 against the side he used to play for. He was on the losing end of a result his old team-mates will remember rather better than he will.
The two sides last met in Belfast on 8 May, where Ulster held the Stormers to a 38-38 draw after a late penalty try went the visitors’ way. Six months on, with a full-strength Stormers pack and a flyhalf in this kind of form, there was nothing that close about it.
Bongi Mbonambi was back among the replacements for the Stormers, one of several Springboks or Springbok squad members in the matchday group.
The Stormers official account summed the afternoon up with a line about another five points at home. It was their last home fixture at DHL Stadium until 19 December.
