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Both the Stormers and the Bulls showed this past weekend why we should have doubts about them being semi-final contenders. Put simply, the Bulls are too stupid and the Stormers remain vulnerable to any team with a decent pack that is prepared to spoil and get in their space.

The Bulls being stupid is the continuation of a theme picked up after their defeat to the Sharks, when they butchered what should have been a full-house of five log points. Even though the Bulls trailed at halftime, they had more than enough ball in the second half to win it.

But instead of playing to their strength, which was their by then dominant pack, they tried to play the sort of expansive game which may have benefited a side like the Stormers, who have forwards that are more mobile.

This all played into the hands of the Sharks, who I learned in a conversation with Kevin Putt in the buildup week were hoping that the Bulls would play precisely the sort of game they did end up playing.

We need to recall what Nick Mallett told Heyneke Meyer when he advised him at the start of the 2002 Currie Cup season: “Keep the ball near the forwards, keep it simple, don’t do anything fancy and you will do well in the Currie Cup”. They didn’t just do well, they ended up winning it.

All teams have to change their approach to some extent one season to the next in order to keep ahead, so it would be understandable if Rudy Joubert, the Bulls Super 12 coach, argued that a simple forward based approach will not always suffice.

But I am not sure it has been put to a proper test, and Hurricanes captain Tana Umaga was heard to wonder aloud during a press conference at Newlands this past weekend about how interesting it would be to see how far the Bulls would get “if they always played like (they did against us)”.

In any event, the conditions at Loftus on Friday night cried out for a forward based game. In many ways the Bulls made exactly the same mistake against the Highlanders as the Brumbies did against the Sharks – they tried to dazzle with running rugby in conditions which called for a different approach.

Victor Matfield will return to lead the side in a couple of weeks, but I will not be holding my breath as it was Matfield who was at the helm when the Bulls tried to run against the Brumbies last year and were crunched.

They also threw away the match against the Stormers at Loftus by playing the wrong game.

Talking of the Stormers, they were bitterly disappointed after the defeat to the Hurricanes and felt they had let their legion of fans down. It was easy to see why they felt this way, as the Cape press had built them up during the week to be world beaters and no-one appeared to be giving the Hurricanes a chance.

I had serious reservations about this, and told Stormers managing director Rob Wagner on the morning of the game that I thought the players would feel extra pressure and perhaps become more fearful of the consequences of failure than hungry for success.

I said this on the basis of what I have experienced in my 10 years of covering rugby in the Cape. There have been countless times in the past decade where the Stormers or Western Province have arrived at a game with an overwhelming wave of public support behind them and then gone out and fluffed their lines.

There was no denying the Stormers players looked tense and even inhibited against the Hurricanes. In many ways it was similar to last year’s unexpected defeat to the Reds, although mercifully their performance was not nearly as inept as it was then.

So yes, if you read between the lines, I am saying that there is an element of the choker in the Stormers set-up, or as someone else put, they are a whole team of Gaffie du Toits.

As was the case with the Proteas during last year’s cricket World Cup, a sense of public expectation can sometimes prove a heavy burden. But the most disturbing thing about the defeat to the Hurricanes for me was the evidence that the Stormers still seem vulnerable to a team that is prepared to get in their faces and has a defence intent on closing up space on their backs.

Three seasons ago a Blues team that was not highly rated arrived in Cape Town to face a Stormers team riding a high after thrashing the Crusaders. But the Blues kept it simple, they squeezed the life out of the Stormers at forward and tackled the daylights out of them at the back and ended up winning comfortably.

If I was part of the Stormers camp I would be concerned that future opponents will be getting hold of the Hurricanes match video as a reminder of how the Stormers can be beaten. But, if their recent track record says anything, the Bulls will probably ignore the video and go to Newlands intent on showing that the entire team can play like Pieter Rossouw.