Bulls get up and running
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The Bulls notched their first victory of the season by beating the Sharks 43-35 in a bruising encounter at Loftus Versfeld.
The Pretoria side outscored the visitors by four tries to two to bounce back from consecutive defeats at home, while the Sharks finished empty-handed after leading with just minutes left to play.
The home side grabbed the early momentum, with the Sharks heavily penalised in the opening stages, and the Bulls managed to build up a handy 9-3 advantage through three Handre Pollard penalties.
The Sharks launched a few promising line-out drives and competed well for the high ball as Pat Lambie tried to keep them in Bulls territory, but the hosts got the first try when Francois Hougaard was put over by Jesse Kriel despite some concern about the pass being forward.
The TMO decided that it was not conclusive that the pass had been forward, so the try stood to put the Bulls 16-6 up.
The Sharks hit back with a superb team try that was started on their 22 by a fantastic offload from Renaldo Bothma and eventually finished by No.8 Ryan Kankowski to bring them right back in it.
The scores were level shortly afterwards when Lambie landed his third penalty, but the Bulls had the final say in the first half as Deon Stegmann scored under the poles to cap a period of extended pressure and give them a 23-16 lead at the break.
The Sharks drew first blood in the second half with a Lambie penalty, but the Bulls responded with their third try as captain Pierre Spies took a well-timed pass to canter over.
However, the game was right back in the balance when Cobus Reinach scored from a charge down after the teams had exchanged penalties, setting up a tense finish.
The Sharks looked to have taken the lead when SP Marais dotted down, but a knock-on from Odwa Ndungane meant they had to be content with another Lambie penalty which brought them within one point.
The visitors took the lead for the first time in the match when Lambie slotted his seventh penalty, but the Bulls replied straight away as Tiaan Schoeman calmly knocked over his first shot at goal.
The Bulls landed the final blow with a Jan Serfontein try on the hooter that secured their bonus point and denied the Sharks one of their own once converted by Schoeman.
Man of the match: Both flyhalves were impressive and did not miss a kick, while there were a number of impressive forwards on display, but our award goes to Bulls centre Jan Serfontein who made his presence felt on attack and defence and scored the decisive try at the death.
The scorers:
For the Bulls:
Tries: Hougaard, Stegmann, Spies, Serfontein
Cons: Pollard 3, Schoeman
Pens: Pollard 4, Scoeman
For the Sharks:
Tries: Kankowski, Reinach
Cons: Lambie 2
Pens: Lambie 7
Teams:
Bulls: 15 Jesse Kriel, 14 Bjorn Basson, 13 JJ Engelbrecht, 12 Jan Serfontein, 11 Francois Hougaard, 10 Handré Pollard, 9 Rudy Paige, 8 Pierre Spies (captain), 7 Pieter Labuschagne, 6 Deon Stegmann, 5 Victor Matfield, 4 Jacques du Plessis, 3 Trevor Nyakane, 2 Adriaan Strauss, 1 Morné Mellett.
Replacements: 16 Callie Visagie, 17 Dean Greyling, 18 Marcel van der Merwe, 19 Grant Hattingh, 20 Hanro Liebenberg, 21 Tian Schoeman, 22 Travis Ismaiel, 23 Jurgen Visser.
Sharks: 15 SP Marais, 14 Odwa Ndungane, 13 Waylon Murray, 12 Andre Esterhuizen, 11 Lwazi Mvovo, 10 Patrick Lambie, 9 Cobus Reinach, 8 Ryan Kankowski, 7 Renaldo Bothma, 6 Marcell Coetzee, 5 Pieter-Steph du Toit, 4 Lubabalo Mtyanda, 3 Jannie du Plessis, 2 Bismarck du Plessis (captain), 1 Dale Chadwick.
Replacements: 16 Kyle Cooper, 17 Thomas du Toit, 18 Lourens Adriaanse, 19 Marco Wentzel, 20 Jean Deysel, 21 Conrad Hoffmann, 22 Fred Zeilinga/Lionel Cronje, 23 Jack Wilson.
Referee: Jaco van Heerden (South Africa)
Assistant referees: Rohan Hoffmann (Australia), Ben Crouse (South Africa)
TMO: Johan Greeff (South Africa)
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