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Burger's brace seals stuttering Bulls win

rugby30 September 2022 18:57| © SuperSport
By:Brenden Nel
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Vodacom Bulls scrumhalf Zak Burger scored two tries as his team picked up a full-house of points to beat Connacht 28-14 in their Vodacom United Rugby Championship match at Loftus Versfeld on Friday night.

On a night where the the whistle ruled the roost, and 35 penalties were the order of the day, Italian ref Andrea Piardi’s handling of the game took what promised to be an excellent clash of styles and turned it into a bit of a farce.

It wasn’t that many of the penalties weren’t justified, it was that Piardi found new ways to award yellow cards and more often than not penalised the attacking side when they were dominant. This happened to both sides so often that it stunted the momentum of the game.

For their measure, the Bulls were comfortably the better side, and had they been more clinical in some of their exchanges they would have run away with a bigger scoreline.

But three yellow cards - the third which caused uncontested scrums and left the Bulls with 13 on the field - soured a game which was mostly played in good spirits.

The first came from Marco van Staden tackling a player and lifting him through the horizontal, but Piardi didn’t take a second look at the tackle and immediately flashed a yellow card.

The second came when Johan Goosen clashed heads with the Connacht scrumhalf Kieran Marmion, a clash which looked accidental at worst but because there was a head clash, Goosen was flashed yellow as well.

The third possibly was the most contentious, as reserve hooker Jan-Hendrik Wessels tackled Marmion late - a clear penalty but hardly worth a yellow card, yet he was flashed a card before he could get a word in.

It put a damper on a game where both sides tried to play, but were foiled by their own error rate.

The Bulls, when they review the game, will see a lot of positives, but will once again talk about their discipline, especially at the breakdown and will once again lament some missed chances.

The Bulls will also be concerned after losing Canan Moodie, Johan Grobbelaar and S’bu Nkosi to injury during the game, and will be hoping none of the niggles are too serious.

There was one where David Kriel didn’t back himself with four players on his shoulder, and booted through, while the Bulls also had an opening try disallowed for obstruction, which will be debated for a while.

But they did get on the board when Connacht dropped the ball on attack and it was scooped up by a flying Kurt-Lee Arendse, who motored 65 metres downfield to score.

That was followed by a beautiful first-phase backline move that saw Cornal Hendriks round the defence on the outside, putting Canan Moodie away before the winger stumbled close to the line. Walt Steenkamp had a go before Burger planted the ball over the whitewash to make it 14-0.

The Bulls threatened to run riot but were their own worst enemies at times, as handling errors hampered their attack and it was only shortly after halftime that they extended their lead, this time as Ruan Nortje ghosted through a hole to put Burger away under the posts for his second try.

Marcell Coetzee added the fourth midway in the second half to claim the bonus point but the yellow cards stunted their run and given the mismatch in numbers, it was inevitable that Connacht would come back.

Jack Aungier went over from close range and Dave Hackshaw’s charge down of Chris Smith’s clearance put Connacht into double figures.

But the Bulls tightened up and saw out the rest of the game to claim a workmanlike, but frustrating victory all round.

SCORERS

Vodacom Bulls - tries: Zak Burger (2), Kurt-Lee Arendse, Marcell Coetzee. Conversions: Johan Goosen (4).

Connacht - tries: Jack Aungier, Dave Hackshaw. Conversions: Hackshaw (2)

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