Spotlight on grandmaster: Willie Le Roux
The double World Cup winner Willie Le Roux may be 34 now, but there are no signs of his powers waning.
He produced a consummate display from fullback to help the Bulls claim a 31-10 bonus point victory over the Dragons in Newport.
There was a superb long pass fired out to Kurt-Lee Arendse to send the wing over for the game’s first try.
Then there was a perfectly placed cross-kick ahead of flank Mupilo Gumede going over for a picture-book score.
Those were the highlights, but there was just a classiness to everything the playmaking Le Roux did.
As one poster on social media put it, he was “reading the game like a grandmaster”.
#ICYMI: Bulls leave it late for bonus-point win 👇#URC #Dragons #Bulls #BULvDRA https://t.co/gT725EWXcw
— rugby365.com (@rugby365com) March 24, 2024
The man himself was suitably modest as he received his Player of the Match award.
“Credit to the boys, it’s a team sport and I couldn’t have done it without all of them,” Le Roux said.
“Coming from 35 degrees in Pretoria and playing in 5 degrees here, there is a 30 degrees difference. It’s definitely a bit tougher.
“The Dragons played really well, so credit to them. They made it very tough for us.
“But we just stuck to what we know and luckily we got that last try to get a bonus point which was unbelievably important.
“It was a really tough game, so it was good for us to get this one under the belt.”
The win saw the Bulls move to second on the URC table with 45 points.
Next up for the Bulls is Leinster, who are top of the table with 49 points.
The two sides will lock horns in Dublin in Round 13 of the URC.
