Triggs is either incredibly stupid or [perhaps brave to punch Duane Vermeulen in the face. If he had been off the field in doing that - he would have ended up in a hospital for six months. As it is Vermeulen showed remarkable restraint by not retaliating.
This si going to be hard on Triggs. He is unlikely to get away with anything less than a two to three month ban - since that kind of hooliganism does not belong on a rugby field. As it is it seems the punch had a negative effect on the performance of Vermeulen - his performance on Saturday was not on the same standard as we normally see from Vermeulen, The Stormers performance was detrimentally affected by the punch - but the Blues loss of the game can largely be attributed to the fact that they had to play with 14 men for the rest of the game.
By the way there is one element of Stormers play that I did not like and that was a tendency to defend their lead rather than to play positive rugby. That makes life very difficult for any team and is going to cost them dearly in future.
Two further observations about the Stormers on Saturday were that Carr was substandard when he came on and that the miniature players in their backline is not a positive. Kolbe showed near to zero on Saturday and neither did De Jongh. I would rather move De Jongh to the wing and play Van Wyk at 13 than to play a light weight dummy at 13. The bigger and stronger backline players of the Blues caused serious problems for the Stormers and in the case of a team like the Chiefs they are going to suffer badly in the relevant regard.
