With a final score of 50-3 and a bonus point in the bag after seven unrequited tries, the Bulls beat the Sunwolves at Loftus Versfeld on Saturday night.

From the kick-off the Bulls showed they intended to hunt the line in their final home game of the 2016 SupeRugby season.

The Bulls managed to put the visitors under sufficient pressure in the first ten minutes and set up camp in the opponent’s 22 meters area. After about 12 minutes the dam wall broke and Lappies Labuschagne could barge through to score the home team’s first try.

The Sunwolves courageously tried to fight back and even put their first (and only) points on the scoreboard when fly-half Yu Tamura kicked a penalty, 15 minutes into the game.

Brummer answered with a penalty of his own and followed the try of Dries Swanepoel, which was made possible with brilliant running rugby by the home team. This try ushered in the final twenty minutes of the first half, dominated by the Bulls.

As a result, another two tries were scored by the Bulls before the half-time whistle. First up was Jannes Kirsten with a move after the ball had been carried through many phases.

Then followed a brilliant piece of individual play by Francois Brummer. He scored under the posts after controlling the ball with an educated boot of a soccer player. This try moved the half-time score to 31-3 in favour of the Bulls.

It took the Bulls only two minutes for a first try after half time, when captain Adriaan Strauss crashed over the goal line, following a driving maul.

Although the Bulls still dominated play, they could not manage to get over the line. This demonstrated improved effort by the Sunwolves on defence.

In the final ten minutes the visitors, however, could not shut all the gaps and Travis Ismaiel used the opportunities for two good tries. His second, for which he had to run 40 metres, clinched the score for the Bulls at a half century.

SCORERS:

BULLS: 50

Tries: Lappies Labuschagne, Dries Swanepoel, Jannes Kirsten, Francois Brummer, Adriaan Strauss, Travis Ismaiel (2).

Conversions: Francois Brummer (4), Tian Schoeman (2). Penalties: Francois Brummer (1).

SUNWOLVES: 03 Penalties: Tu Tamura  (1).

Teams:

Bulls: 15 Jesse Kriel, 14 Travis Ismaiel, 13 Burger Odendaal, 12 Dries Swanepoel, 11 Jamba Ulengo, 10 Francois Brummer, 9 Piet van Zyl, 8 Renaldo Bothma, 7 Jannes Kirsten, 6 Pieter Labuschagne, 5 Jason Jenkins, 4 Marvin Orie, 3 Werner Kruger, 2 Adriaan Strauss (captain), 1 Pierre Schoeman.
Replacements: 16 Jaco Visagie, 17 Nqoba Mxoli, 18 Marcel van der Merwe, 19 Hanro Liebenberg, 20 Grant Hattingh, 21 Arno Botha, 22 Rudy Paige, 23 Tian Schoeman.

Sunwolves: 15 Riaan Viljoen, 14 Hajime Yamashita, 13 Derek Carpenter, 12 Harumichi Tatekawa (captain),11 Yasutaka Sasakura,10 Yu Tamura, 9 Yuki Yatomi, 8 Edward Quirk, 7 Taiyo Ando, 6 Liaki Moli, 5 Naohiro Kotaki, 4 Hitoshi Ono, 3 Shinnosuke Kakinaga, 2 Takeshi Kizu, 1 Keita Inagaki.
Replacements: 16 Futoshi Mori, 17 Masataka Mikami, 18 Takuma Asahara, 19 Faatiga Lemalu, 20 Yoshiya Hosoda, 21 Kaito Shigeno, 22 Mifiposeti Paea, 23 Shokei Kin.

Referee: Quinton Immelman.
Assistant referees: Jaco van Heerden, AJ Jacobs.

TMO: Willie Vos.