Pretoria - A Renaldo Bothma red card just after half-time made things complicated, but the Bulls had enough in the tank to beat the Sunwolves 34-21 at Loftus on Friday night to register their first win of the Super Rugby season.
In the end the hosts scored four tries to the Sunwolves' two, but they did not have it all in their own way after leading narrowly 17-14 at the break.
Springbok centre Jan Serfontein marked his return to action with a try in each half while lock Jason Jenkins and prop Pierre Schoeman also crossed the whitewash for the Bulls.
Scorers:
Bulls
Tries: Jan Serfontein (2), Pierre Schoeman, Jason Jenkins
Conversion: Handre Pollard (3), Tiaan Schoeman
Penalty: Pollard, Schoeman
Red card: Renaldo Bothma
Sunwolves
Tries: Kenki Fukuoka, Ed Quirk
Conversion: Jumpei Ogura
Penalties: Hayden Cripps (3)
Teams:
Bulls
15 Warrick Gelant, 14 Travis Ismaiel, 13 Jan Serfontein, 12 Burger Odendaal, 11 Jamba Ulengo, 10 Handre Pollard (captain), 9 Piet van Zyl, 8 Hanro Liebenberg, 7 Renaldo Bothma, 6 Ruan Steenkamp, 5 Lood de Jager, 4 Jason Jenkins, 3 Trevor Nyakane, 2 Edgar Marutlulle, 1 Pierre Schoeman
Substitutes: 16 Adriaan Strauss, 17 Lizo Gqoboka, 18 Jacobie Adriaanse, 19 RG Snyman, 20 Jannes Kirsten, 21 Ivan van Zyl, 22 Tian Schoeman, 23 Jesse Kriel
Sunwolves
15 Shota Emi, 14 Takaaki Nakazuru, 13 Jamie-Jerry Taulagi, 12 Timothy Lafaele, 11 Kenki Fukuoka, 10 Hayden Cripps, 9 Keisuke Uchida, 8 Willie Britz, 7 Shumei Matsuhashi, 6 Ed Quirk (captain), 5 Uwe Helu, 4 Sam Wykes, 3 Yasuo Yamaji, 2 Yusuke Niwai, 1 Koki Yamamoto
Substitutes: 16 Atsushi Sakate, 17 Masataka Mikami, 18 Heiichiro Ito, 19 Liaki Moli, 20 Yoshitaka Tokunaga, 21 Kaito Shigeno, 22 Jumpei Ogura, 23 Ryohei Yamanaka