The Stormers celebrated their Newlands farewell in style on Saturday, scoring three tries to one to beat the Cheetahs 30-13 in their Super Rugby Unlocked encounter.
But while it was goodbye to the home they will swap for Cape Town Stadium next year, it was hello to a return to form for Herschel Jantjies and Damian Willemse.
The halfbacks, who were heavily criticised for their displays in the early rounds of the tournament, benefitted from a dominating pack of forwards with tighthead prop Frans Malherbe winning the Man of the Match award.
And it took scrumhalf Jantjies just six minutes to stamp his authority on the game, breaking down the tiniest of blindsides down the left touchline to score the first try (7-0).
A penalty apiece made it 10-3, before Willemse landed a monster drop goal – just to show he can – to make it 13-3 at the break.
Those were the two players’ big moments, but it was the way Jantjies kept the opponents on their toes and how Willemse controlled the encounter that satisfied coach John Dobson.
He says of Willemse: “The last few weeks have been steadily upwards, hopefully and slowly, slowly we can silence the haters.
“I thought he was really significant – his game control… it was a really tough, physical game and credit to the Cheetahs. Under that sort of pressure to perform like that made me really, really happy.”
Of Jantjies, he adds: “He’s had a lot of criticism this year… it’s great to see them playing to the standards we know they are capable of.”
Five minutes after the break, and after the Cheetahs converted a penalty, the Stormers scored the try of the match.
In-form fullback Warrick Gelant caught a high ball in his own half and beat four defenders before offloading to Ruhan Nel.
Nel then cut in from the right wing, wrong-footing three defenders, before finding captain Steven Ktshoff who barged into a couple of Cheetahs.
From there the ball went wide to Gelant who found Scarra Ntubeni, who then ran into space to draw two defenders to Sonny-Bill-pop the ball to Juarno Augustus for the score.
Rosco Specman then added some Specmagic to the day with a super chip-and-chase that ended in a bollemakiesie dive in the corner to beat the touchline and Godlen Masimla's cover defence (23-13).
Willemse wou nie gebeat wees nie and then produced a final golden touch to offload superbly to Gelant five minutes from time to score and bring down the Stormers’ curtain at Newlands in satisfactory fashion.