Bulls turn up the heat to give Scarlets a hiding

The Bulls’ backs and forwards combined brilliantly in an emphatic performance to smash the Scarlets from Wales 57-12 in their United Rugby Championship match at Loftus Versfeld last night.

The home team, coming off a solid win against Irish side Munster last Saturday and having also been involved in a Currie Cup game on Wednesday, showed no signs of fatigue as they ran in nine tries to comfortably win their second match at home in the URC against overseas opposition.

With a foundation laid up front with a solid scrum that caused the tourists all sorts of problems, the Bulls dominated all aspects of the match. They had a few wobbles in the lineouts, but for the most part they won plenty of good front foot ball, and the backs had a fieldday.

Jacques van Rooyen, Johan Grobbelaar, Ruan Nortje(below), Marcell Coetzee, Cyle Brink and Elrigh Louw were involved in many of the Bulls’ best plays with Nortje, Brink, Coetzee (2), Louw and Grobbelaar (2) crossing for tries.

At the back, Madosh Tambwe and Kurt-Lee Arendse were full of running while young wing Canan Moodie scored his team’s first try.

The Bulls were 17-0 up after 15 minutes, and that soon became 24-0 and then 31-0, after 32 minutes.

Just before the break, Scarlets finally found a way through the Bulls’ strong defence, Tonga international Sione Kalamafoni going over for a converted try.

At the start of the second half the visitors were dealt a blow of another kind when Ioan Nicholas was yellow carded for dangerously taking out Tambwe in the air and in the time he was off the field the Bulls scored two more tries to go 45-7 up with just under 30 minutes to play.

While the Bulls took their foot off the gas in the final quarter, Coetzee crossed for a second try, while replacement prop Rob Hunt also got his name on the scorers sheet.

Rob Evans, a Scarlets replacement, got his team’s second try in the 80th minute.