Bulls rebound to hold off Pumas

The Bulls showed pleasing character as they rebounded from their embarrassing loss in the Rainbow Cup final, staying the course and pulling off a tight 3227 win over the Pumas in an intriguing Currie Cup match at Loftus Versfeld last night.

The Bulls dominated the set-pieces in the first half and two clinical tries by centre Harold Vorster, through a chip and re-gather with his first touch in a Bulls jersey, and Madosh Tambwe, who breezed past the last two Pumas defenders, gave the home side a 17-3 halftime lead.

Of course the ever-committed Pumas were going to fight back and some soft moments by the Bulls, letting wing Tapiwa Mafura bounce off a couple of tackles down the right and then Tambwe allowing a grubber to go through his legs, saw excellent left wing Etienne Taljaard get a well-deserved try.

But Bulls centre Cornal Hendricks showed great game awareness as his long pass to Stravino Jacobs found the wing in space, although the Pumas reacted well.

But the visitors tried to counter-ruck, Hendricks picked up the ball and went scooting down the blindside and scored to give the defending champions a 25-10 lead with 15 minutes remaining.

But far from setting up a comfortable finish for the Bulls, that’s when things started to become really tough for the home side as the Pumas began to exert pressure on the scrums and flyhalf Eddie Fouche flourished.

He firstly chipped over the top and re-gathered to score as Jacobs could not take the ball cleanly under the pressure, and then, after a particularly big scrum, Fouche’s wonderful long pass to Devon Williams saw the fullback come screaming through midfield and then pass out wide for Mafura to score.

It was suddenly a one-point game, but the Bulls managed to keep calm, allowing replacement fullback David Kriel to score the match-winning try, while Chris Smith was deadly accurate with his boot.

Having been so below par last weekend in Italy, coach Jake White will be delighted the Bulls played with some confidence.