The Vodacom Blue Bulls powered to an impressive 30-25 win over DHL Western Province in their opening Currie Cup clash of the season in torrential conditions at the DHL Stadium in Cape Town on Sunday afternoon.
The rain poured down throughout the match, making for very difficult conditions, but that didn’t stop both teams from battling out an entertaining back and forth encounter, which the Bulls essentially controlled from the start.
The Bulls took an early lead just three minutes into the match with a penalty to flyhalf Jaco van der Walt, but the hosts hit back 10 minutes later when inside centre Jean-Luc du Plessis caught the visitors defence napping with a quick tap in the 22m to dive over for an unconverted score.
The Bulls then retook the lead in the 21st minute as they setup a lineout deep in the Province 22m, set the maul and rumbled over with hooker Joe van Zyl dotting down.
Van Der Walt added the conversion and slotted a 33rd minute penalty to give the Bulls a decent 13-5 lead which they took into the halftime break.
At the start of the second half Province flyhalf Jurie Mathee, who had missed a conversion in the first half, missed his second shot at goal as his penalty went wide.
This allowed the Bulls to go further ahead with another Van Der Walt penalty in the 46th minute, only for the hosts to hit back two minutes later as lock Gary Porter crashed over from close range, but Mathee was again off target to leave the score 16-10.
In the 55th minute Mathee finally slotted his first kick, a penalty from close range to cut the deficit to just three points.
But the Bulls powered ahead with a quickfire double score, as first replacement flyhalf Chris Smith popped a cross kick to outside centre Aphiwe Dyantyi, who offloaded to left wing Devon Williams to go over in the corner, converted by Smith in the 60th minute.
Two minutes later the Bulls were back in the Province 22m where replacement loose forward Mpilo Gumede picked the ball up at a ruck and dived over to score, with Smith’s extras pushing them into a 30-13 lead.
Although the game was done the hosts finished with a flourish as they dotted down two tries in the final four minutes to make sure that they would walk away from the match with two bonus points.
First Province attacked into the Bulls 22m, where Du Plessis stabbed through a perfectly weighted grubber for left wing Angelo Davids to dive on, followed by outside centre Wandisile Simelane forcing his way over from close range after the fulltime hooter.
Scorers
Western Province: Tries - Jean-Luc du Plessis, Gary Porter, Angelo Davids, Wandisile Simelane; Conversion - Du Plessis; Penalty - Jurie Mathee
Bulls: Tries - Joe van Zyl, Devon Williams, Mpilo Gumede; Conversions - Jaco van der Walt, Chris Smith (2); Penalties - Van Der Walt (3)