A Vodacom Bulls team featuring a quartet of Springboks proved too strong for a young Western Province side in a one-sided Currie Cup clash in Cape Town.
The visitors benefited greatly from a more experienced lineup that featured players with Test credentials including Bismarck du Plessis, Morne Steyn, Marcell Coetzee and Lionel Mapoe.
A mild night at Cape Town Stadium made for near-perfect conditions for running rugby and run the Bulls did, launching endless waves of attack from the first whistle.
Such was the dominance of the Bulls tsunami, that they had the four-try bonus point wrapped up before the 30-minute mark.
It took just two minutes for the visitors to score the opening try, as fullback James Verity-Am was left with the simple task of exploiting an overlap.
While WP fired a couple of warning shots, forcing the Bulls to concede a few penalties, Gert Smal’s team extended their lead when youngster Canan Moodie produced a sublime finish in the corner on his first senior start.
The blue machine kept firing as prop Simphiwe Matanzima, dominant at the scrums, piled over the tryline to make it 21-0, before flank Cyle Brink was controversially awarded a try for his new team on a TMO review to give the Bulls a 28-0 lead, which they held until half time.
In the second half, the one-sided nature of the match continued as Bismarck du Plessis scored from a driving maul and then scrumhalf Marco Jansen van Vuren dived over from short range to make it 40-0 after 58 minutes.
Province did give the home support something to shout about when, after their longest period of sustained pressure, captain Nama Xaba reached over the tryline from a quick-tap penalty.
There was also something for the crowd to get excited about in the final 10 minutes as Tristan Leyds did excellently to finish off an attack started in Province’s 22-metre area, before Jan-Hendrik Wessels was red-carded for a dangerous clean-out and Marcel Theunissen scored to give the hosts some respectability on the scoreboard.
Photo: EJ Langner/Gallo Images
