The Waikato Chiefs rallied from 20-3 down at halftime to score three second-half tries and beat South Africa's Stormers 30-23 in Super Rugby on Saturday.

Stormers winger Gio Aplon was both hero and villain, scoring a brilliant first half try - possibly the best of the season - to help build an imposing first-half lead, then conceding a penalty try to spark the Chiefs' comeback in the second half.

Aplon scored a modern rarity, a try from a set piece, in the 18th minute. He received the ball from a scrum on halfway and weaved through the tackles of All Blacks Brendon Leonard and Mils Muliaina for the first of the Stormers' two tries.

Chiefs captain Muliaina celebrated his 100th Super game with his team's fifth win from 12 outings, keeping alive their slim playoffs chances.

"We had a patch there in the first half, 10 minutes or so, where they really fired on points but to our credit we came out, we wanted to finish well and I'm absolutely stoked," Muliaina said.

"Once we felt we could get that little bit of parity we felt things started coming our way. A couple of opportunist tries but, hey, you take those."

The Stormers next face the Auckland Blues as they attempt to turn around two straight losses.

"The first half was what we planned all week and the second half was pretty disgusting really," captain Schalk Burger said.

"We didn't have our hands on the ball, we couldn't keep it through phases and two breakaway tries put us under pressure. We just couldn't recover from that."

The Cape Town-based Stormers have fashioned the best defensive record in the tournament this season, conceding only 49 points in the second halves of their 10 previous matches. But they conceded 27 points in the second half on Saturday to slip to their third loss from 11 games, their second in succession after last week's home loss to the Canterbury Crusaders.

Their lead in the South African conference is now under severe threat from the Durban-based Sharks.

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