The Stormers went top of the Super Rugby standings after an impressive performance by flyhalf Peter Grant led them to a 23-13 victory over the defending champions Queensland Reds in Brisbane.
The Reds enjoyed plenty of ball at Suncorp Stadium but were smothered by a stiff Stormers defence who rebounded from last week's loss to the Crusaders to make it seven wins from eight games this year.
The two-try win moved them ahead of the Waikato Chiefs, who can return to the summit when they play away to the Sharks on Saturday. Queensland are second in the Australian Conference after their fourth defeat in eight matches.
"Yeah, I'm very happy with the performance after last week we came back with a good win," Stormers captain Duane Vermeulen said in a pitchside interview.
"We wanted to take them on physically and another thing we really wanted to do was counter-attack a little bit more and I think we pulled it off."
The Reds' gameplan was not helped by early injuries to their backline.
Flyhalf Sam Lane was helped from the field in the fifth minute after what appeared to be a serious knee injury with centre Ben Tapuai following a little lter.
The Reds have been without first-choice flyhalf Quade Cooper all season after he injured his knee playing for Australia at the World Cup.
"We lost our 10 in the first two minutes and our 13 five minutes later so we just don't seem to be able to play with the backline we train with," Reds coach Ewan McKenzie bemoaned.
As Tapuai left the field, the Reds were already 10-0 down after Stormers winger Gio Aplon was the grateful recipient of a Grant offload to score the South Africans' first try.
Grant, who opened the scoring with a second-minute penalty, slotted over the conversion and then scored a brilliant try himself as the Stormers went the length of the field after Lane's replacement Ben Lucas missed a penalty attempt.
Prop Steven Kitshoff made a linebreak and, after a number of phases, Grant collected the ball and slipped past a static Radike Samo and dived under a couple of tackles to score the Stormers second try in the 37th minute.
Grant again converted as the Stormers went in at halftime 17-3 ahead.
The Reds started the second half brighter and their early pressure was rewarded with a 61st minute try by captain James Horwill after a rare Stormers error.
The towering lock claimed a stray lineout throw by Stormers replacement hooker Deon Fourie to crash over from close range. Centre Mike Harris knocked over the conversion to cut the lead to 10 points as the Reds took hold of the encounter.
Harris kicked a second penalty to cut the deficit to seven points with two minutes left but Grant slotted another penalty just before the hooter to seal victory for the 2010 runners-up.
"They had two opportunities in the first half, took them both and we were chasing the scoreboard and its always hard when you are chasing the scoreboard," McKenzie said.
