The DHL Stormers and Vodacom Bulls will host valuable home quarter-finals in the Vodacom United Rugby Championship against Edinburgh and the Cell C Sharks respectively, following a pulsating closing round of league action this past weekend.
In the other two quarter-finals, log-leaders Leinster will take on the Glasgow Warriors, and Ulster will host Munster in an all-Ireland playoff.
All four matches are scheduled for the first weekend of June, and kick-off times and venues will be confirmed in due course.
The DHL Stormers sealed second place on the standings with a bonus point 26-21 victory against the Scarlets in Llanelli on May 21, securing the South African Shield as the top domestic team, which means a quarter-final victory will guarantee them a home semi-final.
The Vodacom Bulls, in turn, held out the Ospreys for a valuable 38-31 victory in Swansea on Friday night to leap into the fourth position on the table for a home quarter-final, leap-frogging the Cell C Sharks on the log after the Durbanites were beaten 24-21 by Ulster in Belfast a earlier on Friday.
The Emirates Lions made it three from four for the South African teams on the road this weekend after they were too strong for the Dragons in Newport on Saturday afternoon, winning by 21-11.
DHL Stormers flyhalf Manie Libbok finished the league phase of the competition as the top points scorer with 142, followed by the Cell C Sharks’ Curwin Bosch in second on 124, while the Emirates Lions’ Jordan Hendrikse finished joint-sixth on 111 points.
The top three try scorers are all from South African teams, Leolin Zas of the DHL Stormers tops the list on ten five-pointers, while his team-mate Seabelo Senatla and Vodacom Bulls captain Marcell Coetzee have scored nine each. Vodacom Bulls hooker Johan Grobbelaar is joint fourth with eight tries.
Evan Roos (No 8) of the DHL Stormers tops the lists for most successful carries, with 125, and defenders beaten (45), while Vodacom Bulls fullback Kurt-Lee Arendse made the cleanest breaks (21) and gained the most meters in the competition, with 991m. Coetzee’s 32 offloads are also the most in the competition.
