United Rugby Championship: Priestland stars as Cardiff down Stormers 30-24

Rhys Priestland's starring display inspired Cardiff to victory over defending URC champions Stormers and took the hosts to sixth in the table.

The veteran Wales fly-half kicked 20 points and set up scores for wings Theo Cabango and Jason Harries with astute kicks.

Stomers scored tries through Leolin Zas, Nama Xaba (2) and Junior Pokomela, three coming from line-out drives.

But they could only convert two and had to settle for two losing bonus points.

It ended a run of 15 matches unbeaten for the South African visitors, who had been held to a draw by Ospreys in similar wet conditions the previous week.

Cardiff fielded current Wales squad players Priestland, Tomos Williams and Dillon Lewis, with Priestland recalled to fight for a national jersey some 11 months after his last cap.

They were without the injured Josh Adams and Taulupe Faletau, Shane Lewis-Hughes dropped out late to be replaced by James Botham, and international centre Uilisi Halaholo only lasted five minutes.

He was awkwardly cleared out of a ruck after making a tackle, suffering knee and hamstring damage as a result.

With torrential rain having eased just before the start, Priestland got the scoreboard moving with two penalties, then produced a monster cross-field kick into space which sat up for lightning-fast wing Cabango to gather and dive over triumphantly in the 17th minute.

The defending champions hit back almost straightaway with a ferocious driving maul from a line-out 15 metres out, flanker Xaba claiming the score with Manie Libbok converting.

Number eight Hacjivah Dayimani then charged half the length of the field only to be denied by a Botham cover tackle, but the Stormers were not held out for long as wing Zas ran onto a cross-kick to score wide out after 27 minutes, Libbok again landing the angled goal.

Scottish ref Mike Adamson, a late deputy for Italy's Andrea Piardi, sin-binned Dayimani for a head-high tackle which forced hooker Kristian Dacey off, and Priestland's third penalty made it 14-14 at the break.

Just three minutes later, Harries continued the theme of wingers scoring from kicks as Priestland floated a chip into space, then added the touchline extras.

The visitors' driving mauls from close-range line-outs again proved irresistible as Xaba bundled over for his second and his replacement Pokomela also crossed, either side of a Priestland penalty, to leave the scores tied again at 24-24 going into the final quarter.

A 70th minute strike from Priestland nudged Cardiff ahead going into a nervous finale, but they held out in defence to rousing cheers and worked their way downfield for Priestland to land his sixth penalty with the last kick of the match and seal a reminder to the Wales management of his abilities.

Cardiff Director of Rugby Dai Young told BBC Sport Wales:

"We beat the defending champions Leinster here last year as well, we're really pleased with the way we fronted up and delivered on the game plan. We went to the air quite often and got plenty of joy, and we had to make a mess of the contact area.

"We talked all week about backing up two decent performances, and they've done that, so we roll on to next week against Edinburgh and the pressure is to keep these levels of performances up.

"Rhys controlled the game really well, on a night like tonight he got us out of danger on a number of occasions to not only relieve pressure but put pressure back on them, I thought he had a great game at ten and was really accurate taking the points.

"Selection is subjective (for Wales) but he's put his hand up over the last couple of weeks, at 15 and now at 10."

Stormers coach John Dobson said:

"I can't fault our efforts but the Welsh teams have played very cleverly against us. Cardiff manipulated our backfield and we've got to get better at (dealing with wet) conditions, especially on a 4G pitch where we were poor at the breakdown.

"We knew it would be tough in these conditions but we emerge from this tour with nine points from three games (five against Zebre, a draw against Ospreys and two in Cardiff) so it's not the end of the world.

"Priestland was absolutely sublime, him and Tomos Williams, his kicking display was right up there."

Cardiff Rugby: Ben Thomas; Jason Harries, Max Llewellyn, Uilisi Halaholo, Theo Cabango; Rhys Priestland, Tomos Williams; Rhys Carre, Kristian Dacey, Dillon Lewis, Josh Turnbull (capt), Rory Thornton, James Botham, Thomas Young, James Ratti

Replacements: Kirby Myhill, Corey Domachowski, Dmitri Arhip, Teddy Williams, Lopeti Timani, Gwilym Bradley, Lloyd Williams, Mason Grady.

Stormers: Clayton Blommetjies; Suleiman Hartzenberg, Alapati Leuia, Dan du Plessis, Leolin Zas; Manie Libbok, Godlen Masimla; Steven Kitshoff, Joseph Dweba, Frans Malherbe, Adre Smith, Marvin Orie, Nama Xaba, Ernst van Rhyn (capt), Hacjivah Dayimani.

Replacements: JJ Kotze, Kwenzo Blose, Brok Harris, Ben-Jason Dixon, Willie Engelbrecht, Junior Pokomela, Paul de Wet, Sacha Mngomezulu.

Referee: Mike Adamson (Scotland)

Assistant referees: Simon Rees & Carwyn Williams (WRU)

TMO: Andrew McMenemy (Scotland)