Bulls score bonus point win against Kings in scrappy game
WHAT do you get when you mix a Japanese referee, a struggling franchise and a former champion desperate for wins under the belt? A scrappy contest.
The Bulls scored six tries on their way to a bonus point win over the Southern Kings but this game overall was thorny to the eyes.
Mistakes can often free a rugby game from rigid defensive structures and create openings for tries. But the players in this game looked like they were trying to skate on mud and so did referee Shuhei Kubo, who got swept aside by the muck.
Bulls rejects Louis Fouche and Jurgen Visser had to show their wares in this game.
Fouche’s early hit on opposite number Tian Schoeman had an ounce of vengeance in it.
But both simply confirmed that they were not Bulls material, even if they weren’t up against the allconquering Bulls of 2007 to 2010.
Visser had another nightmarish game at fullback and was culpable for two Bulls scores. He tarried with the ball outside the Kings 22m area instead of clearing quickly.
Bulls centre Jan Serfontein charged down his lame kick and chased the ball to the tryline to score the opening touchdown.
Visser looks a weekly liability for the Kings. He’s a golden goose for the Kings’ opponents. That he was held up over the line when the Kings had a gilt-edged chance to score on the stroke of half time rubbed salt into the wounds.
Serfontein’s score gave the Bulls the impetus to put phases together.
A multiphase period took the Bulls to the Kings half where they booked in for bed and breakfast. And after some swift handling, Jamba Ulengo scored their second try.
Former Kings fullback SP Marais showed Visser how a No 15 does it when he cleaved through the Kings defence to score their third, rounding off sustained Bulls pressure.
The Kings made gains in the win over the Sunwolves last weekend but a lot of those were wiped out early against the Bulls.
Two yellow cards to RG Snyman and Marcel van der Merwe threatened to swing momentum the Kings’ way but, after pounding at the Bulls line for what felt like days, the home side had to settle for two penalties from Fouche’s boot.
The second half began with another Visser error and another Ulengo try.
Kings coach Deon Davids must feel like a bush mechanic that’s inherited a 1976 Ford Cortina saloon; you fix one component and a week later another breaks down.
The Bulls sealed their most comfortable win with tries by Snyman and Marais’s second of the game.