DHL Stormers fans have reason to smile despite a draw in Wales, according to Mark Keohane.

In his TIMESLive column, Keohane points out that the Stormers last season, after three matches, had three league points and ended up winning the Vodacom United Rugby Championship, and it talks to the team’s new, title-winning credentials that there is anything other than celebration over their current unbeaten status with 17 log points after three wins and a draw.

A 14-game winning streak by the Stormers was ended for the defending champions on Friday with a 16-16 draw against Ospreys in Wales.

Also, the early season form of the Lions and Sharks – the former returning home from a three-match unbeaten tour to Wales and Scotland, while the latter began their home campaign with an emphatic bonus-point win over Glasgow Warriors – has further raised the bar for SA teams in the URC.

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“The Stormers gained two league points in Swansea. They did not lose two league points. But you, like I, have every reason to feel they lost in the Vodacom United Rugby Championship,” Keohane writes.

“The URC is a marathon, not a sprint. Form in October is so irrelevant to form in June when the title gets decided. Which doesn’t mean we can’t live each match as if it is the last.

“The Cape Town-based champions have a fantastic culture, a brilliant coach in John Dobson and are unbeaten in 15 URC matches, but such is the expectation and standard that they have set, that two league points and a draw in another country does not make for a smile – at least not on Friday night in the immediate emotional aftermath of the moment.

“How blessed are we to bemoan a team that has taken seven league points in two overseas matches and still hasn’t been beaten in a year. How blessed are we to have these expectations of our South African quartet of franchises in the URC

“This time last year, a South African overseas draw would have been a celebration. Now it is an insult.”

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