The Stormers came back from 0-10 down to comfortably beat the Blues 33-20 in their Super14 match at Newlands on Saturday.
Kobus van der Merwe’s men led 20-13 at half-time and the victory over New Zealand’s semifinal contenders did the Sharks and the Bulls a huge favour.
Things did, however, start off disastrously for the Stormers, with Blues centre Isaia Toeava running in for a try as early as the third minute after shrugging off scrumhalf JP Joubert’s challenge.
Flyhalf David Holwell converted and increased the Blues’ lead to 10-0 with a penalty 10 minutes later .
The Stormers, however, responded superbly by scoring 20 points in a devastating spell between the 16th and 29th minutes.
Fullback Conrad Jantjes touched down after some good work by centres De Wet Barry and Jean de Villiers, as well as left wing Brent Russell.
Flyhalf Peter Grant converted and squared the game shortly thereafter with the first of his penalties.
Barry was also involved in creating the second try when his tackle resulted in Blues scrumhalf David Gibson spilling the ball. Stormers lock Ross Skeate, who was named man of the match, pounced and passed to flank and captain, Luke Watson, who ran in for the try.
Grant converted again and added his second penalty after Blues lock and captain, Troy Flavell, was sin-binned for a line-out infringement.
The Stormers, however, failed to further exploit their one-man advantage and the Blues clawed back three points with another penalty by Holwell just before the break.
The Capetonians seized back the initiative shortly after the restart, with Grant succeeding with his third penalty to make it 23-13.
The Blues fought their way into Stormers territory, but instead of scoring from a favourable position, were undone by a long-range intercept try by De Villiers.
That moment in the 49th minute proved to be decisive, and once Grant added the conversion and another penalty to make it 33-13, all the Blues were going to do for the rest of the evening was play catch-up rugby.
Loosehead prop Tony Woodcock scored under the Stormers posts and replacement flyhalf Isa Nacewa converted, but try as they might, the Blues could not make their pressure count.
Stormers loosehead prop Schalk Ferreira was sin-binned a minute from time after repeated offences, but by that time the Blues were doing no more than playing for a bonus point.
That they failed to get it owed much to a great effort by the Stormers forwards on the day and the character of the side. — Sapa