Bulls’ Pollard Force(s) victory

Handr� Pollard didn't waste to give the Bulls a slender one-point lead over the Force and ultimately victory.

Handr� Pollard didn't waste to give the Bulls a slender one-point lead over the Force and ultimately victory.

Published Mar 22, 2015

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The heavy downpour that hit the Capital city on Saturday afternoon washed away any hopes of this encounter being an open running game, instead it turned out to be a boring, error-riddled affair with a dramatic ending.

For all of 77 minutes, the 12271 spectators here were treated to a yawn fest until Western Force flyhalf Sias Ebersohn kicked over a mammoth 55m penalty to give the visitors a slender two-point lead that seemed to have sealed the game for the Australians.

But the Australians gave away what would have been another famous win over the Bulls when Adam Coleman upended Bulls flyhalf Handré Pollard and conceded a penalty a few metres into their half.

Pollard didn’t waste time hoofing the ball over the crossbar to give the Bulls a slender one-point lead and ultimately victory.

It was a lucky escape for the Bulls who had looked directionless especially with ball in hand for most of the game.

Further exacerbating the Bulls poor performance when they had possession was the high handling error rate with much of their ball being lost in the collision through aimless passing and knock-ons.

Through their rolling mauls they were often impeded by the Force pack whose intent was to concede penalties rather than tries.

Those maul penalties almost proved costly as they lost two players within two minutes when Coleman and Tetera Faulkner were yellow carded for breaking up the Bulls maul.

The Bulls could only muster seven points, from a converted try by prop Marcel van der Merwe.

Even with their two-man advantage, they seemed to retreat and allow the Force to play all the rugby.

Pollard’s accurate boot sent over three penalties prior to Van der Merwe’s try kept them in the game.

As much as the Bulls’ errors were of their own making, kudos need to go to the Force for their unrelenting pressure on defence.

For greater chunks of this ping pong affair, the Force’s scrappy tactics seemed to work and they were able to tear apart some of the Bulls efforts especially deep in their half.

As unstructured as the Force were, they were industrious with ball in hand and easily out-scored the Bulls by three tries to one.

Their first try by Coleman in the 12th minute was an indication that they had come to Loftus to play rugby as Coleman timely squeezed in between Deon Stegmann and Lappies Labuschagne after receiving a short pass from the base of the ruck to canter over and give his team the lead.

Their second try was a stroke of luck. It was through their alertness following a Luke Burton penalty that came off the upright for captain Sam Wykes to rip the ball out of the grasp of Bulls lock Jacques du Plessis and barge over the line to regain the lead.

The Australians’ third try came from a rare foray deep into Bulls territory and a lapse in the hosts’ defence, centre Kyle Godwin cutting through the hapless efforts of props Morné Mellett and Trevor Nyakane.

Godwin’s try came at an opportune time for the Force with only eight minutes left on the stadium clock and it brought them to within one point of the Bulls.

From then on the drama unfolded and it was the Bulls who walked away the victors to retain their place in the middle of the Super Rugby log.

 

Loftus Versfeld

Bulls (9) 25

Try: Van der Merwe. Conversion: Pollard. Penalties: Pollard (6)

Western Force (7) 24

Tries: Coleman, Wykes, Godwin. Conversions: Burton (2), Ebersohn. Penalty: Ebersohn

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