Bulls slip in SA conference
BRUMBIES (12) 22 Tries: Kuridrani (3), Simone; Conversion: Lealiifano
BULLS
(10) 10 THE BULLS’ hopes of an Australian sweep died at the final hurdle after suffering defeat to the Brumbies courtesy of a Tivani Kuridrani hattrick in Canberra yesterday.
The optimism from the overseas drought-ending win over the Rebels last week has been replaced by the prospect of missing the play-offs.
The Bulls have slipped to second place in the South African conference and could find themselves even lower depending on other results this weekend.
The Pretoria side had a good grip on the match for most of the first half before the momentum started to swing in the hosts’ favour shortly before the half-time break.
The Brumbies scored four tries with Iran Simone adding to Kuridrani’s three while Hanro Liebenberg gave the Bulls their only five-pointer of the match.
The Bulls’ inconsistency will go down as one of the mysteries of the 2019 Super Rugby season as they battled to produce good performances in consecutive weeks.
Both sides opted for the bump and grind approach in the opening exchanges of the match which resulted in driving mauls galore.
While the Brumbies have earned a reputation for scoring tries from the driving maul, it was the Bulls that got the rub of the green early on.
The Brumbies changed tact when they realised they could not get any joy against the big Bulls pack.
The result was a highlight reel of Kuridrani’s ‘choo-choo’ try celebration with the Wallaby centre carving up the Bulls defence.
The Bulls got off to a good start with flyhalf Manie Libbok landing a penalty goal two minutes into the game.
Serving as an early warning of things to come, Kuridrani scored his first try two minutes later following some sub-par one-on-one defence by the Bulls.
A week ago the Bulls’ well organised defence was a defining feature in their win over the Rebels, but it was absent against the Brumbies, missing 30 of their tackles.
Getting the early ascendancy up front, the Bulls looked set to squeeze the life out of the Brumbies through their scrum and line-out set pieces.
Their persistent pressure during the opening minutes of the match bore fruit with Thomas Cusack copping a yellow card in the 15th