Bulls trample Glasgow to close in on playoff place

Published on

The Vodacom Bulls produced a powerhouse second-half performance to claim a crucial bonus-point victory over the Glasgow Warriors in Pretoria on Friday and close in on qualifying for the Vodacom United Rugby Championship playoffs.

The 29-17 victory saw the Bulls climb – albeit temporarily – up to second place on the log, with the rest of the teams in the top eight still to play.

Now sitting on 53 points, the Bulls will be hoping that the Ospreys can beat the ninth-placed Scarlets in Saturday’s Welsh derby to confirm their place in the top eight.

The result papered over a shaky start, when the Bulls conceded a penalty try and lost Elrigh Louw to a yellow card just six minutes in. But a strong third quarter featured the hosts grinding down Glasgow through the power of their pack.

In some ways, the game was very similar to the one between the Stormers and Glasgow in Cape Town last week – the Warriors clung onto a 10-10 stalemate for much of the first half before the Bulls exploited Zander Fagerson’s yellow card to put Madosh Tambwe over on the brink of half-time.

Plenty was made of the injury-enforced absence of Kurt-Lee Arendse. However, 19-year-old Canan Moodie did a really solid job in his place at fullback and looked solid under the high ball.

While Glasgow saw plenty of the ball at the start of the second half, they struggled to make too many inroads into the Bulls defence. The home side, meanwhile, started to get plenty of momentum from their maul. This would prove too much for Glasgow to handle as lock Walt Steenkamp burst over from close range for the third try.

Cyle Brink made a fantastic impact as a substitute, winning a breakdown turnover on the halfway line, before showing incredible leg drive to power over for the all-important bonus-point try.

Glasgow mounted a late comeback attempt and Ollie Smith’s try gave them hope, but the Bulls did enough to see out the game for a relatively comfortable win.

Photo: Lee Warren/Gallo Images

Post by

Dylan Jack