Johannesburg — A ruthless Vodacom Bulls dispatched an underwhelming Emirates Lions, securing a morale-boosting victory in their United Rugby Championship clash on Saturday afternoon at Emirates Airline Park.
The Bulls, although certainly not clinical in the execution of all their chances, took their shots when it counted; while the Lions made far too many errors far too often when in possession to build any sustained threat.
For the first 20 minutes or so, the match was an arm-wrestle with both teams trading blows through the boots of Morne Steyn and Fred Zeilinga. In this specific early skirmish, however, it was the Bulls who came out on top. After a period of some good pressure, hooker Johan Grobbelaar mauled over the whitewash to open the visitors' try-scoring account to lead 13-3.
The Bulls should have scored a second moments later, but for the fumbling actions of Ruan Nortje on the line; and then a third went begging as PJ Botha did just enough to rip the ball out of Simphiwe Matanzima’s grip as he tried to cross the whitewash. The Bulls were in control now, pinning the host back in their own 22, with loosies Arno Botha and Marcell Coetzee dining on a healthy serving of ball at the breakdown.
Try as they might, the Lions could not escape their own half, and on those rare occasions that they did in the first half, they lacked the cutting edge to execute their plays. Therefore, there was an air of inevitability about the Bulls’ second try, the Pretorians camping on the Lions line and after a short defensive jostle, Embrose Papier sniping around the ruck to dive over the line.
Nevertheless, the Lions could have ended the half in a much better position. A brilliant try was disallowed after Rabz Maxwane opened up the Bulls defence with an excellent line cutting in, but then referee Rasta Rasivhenge and the TMO adjudged that Wandisile Simelane was guilty of obstruction. Fred Zeilinga then committed the cardinal sin of not kicking touch for a 5m lineout some moments later in the last play of the first stanza to deny the Lions another crack at the tryline.
The second half started liverish for the Lions, first skipper Burger Odendaal was forced to leave the field with a suspected concussion, while Zeilinga missed two penalty opportunities. A fumble by the No 10 resulted directly in the Bulls scoring their third try through Botha, as the resulting scrum near the Lions 5m line put heaps of pressure on the host’s defence. In contrast, Steyn was having a much more successful afternoon, although nowhere near perfect.
A swirling light drizzle, intermittent, might have played its part in the rest of the second half becoming slightly scrappy, both teams slipping in their handling. There was brief hope of a Lions’ fight-back when Jaco Kriel crossed the line through a maul with 20 minutes remaining and trailing by 17 points, but then the match lost a bit of impetus as the Bulls ground out a bruising, yet important victory.
IOL Sport