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Pretoria - The Blue Bulls maintained their perfect start to the season with a 47-22 victory over the Golden Lions at Loftus Versfeld on Saturday.
The men from Pretoria have now made it two wins out of two this season while in contrast the Golden Lions have lost two of their three games thus far this campaign.
Tries from Piet Van Zyl, Ruben Van Heerden, Tony Jantjies, Burger Odendaal, Boom Prinsloo, Warrick Gelant, Travis Ismaiel and Pierre Schoeman proved too much for the Golden Lions who scored through Andrew Beerwinkel and an Aphiwe Dyantyi brace.
The Blue Bulls made a scintillating start to the game, scoring three tries in the opening 11 minutes.
The first came off the back of a solid scrum on halfway as the home side showed a series of good offloads before Van Zyl became the last man to receive the ball and dot down.
Soon after, Van Heerden burst over after a series of powerful carries from the Blue Bulls' forwards.
Next up was Jantjies who produced a wonderful piece of individual brilliance to give the home side a 21-0 lead. Picking up the ball from the ruck, Jantjies sliced right through the empty space behind the breakdown going right down the middle all the way to cross the whitewash. He converted to make it three successful conversions out of three.
But the Bulls' indiscipline cost them after they had made a good start to the game. Irne Herbst was yellow-carded for cynical play at the breakdown.
And the Golden Lions immediately capitalised on their numerical advantage, hitting back in the 22nd minute. From the resulting penalty, they kicked to touch and set up the attacking five-metre lineout. From the set-piece, the ball went through the hands to Dyantyi who finished clinically.
Five minutes later, the away side had their second. Once again it came from the lineout as they set up the driving maul with Beerwinkel going over at the back.
Immediately afterwards, Jan-Henning Campher was sin-binned as the Bulls were reduced to thirteen men as indiscipline continued to be a problem for the home team.
And four minutes later, Dyantyi grabbed his brace with an even more impressive finish than his first as he showed a great step to evade three Blue Bulls defenders. But Shaun Reynolds was having difficulty with his conversions, missing his third in a row as the Golden Lions pegged it back to 21-15.
But the Blue Bulls had the last laugh of the first-half when Odendaal scored on the stroke of half-time. Jantjies made it four out of four conversions in stark contrast to his opposite number as the home side took a 28-15 lead in to the interval.
And they had the first laugh of the second half, too, when skipper Prinsloo showed good pace for a flank to surge down the right wing and dot down in the 50th minute. Jantjies could not maintain his perfect record with the extras.
Three minutes later, the Golden Lions hit back with a Hanekom try and this time Reynolds converted.
Soon after, the Blue Bulls had their third player of the match yellow-carded, this time Kefentse Mahlo the culprit. But despite being a man down, Gelant and Ismaiel scored two opportunistic tries in quick succession as the Blue Bulls pulled clear at 47-22.
Schoeman put the icing on the cake with the Blue Bulls' seventh try as the Blue Bulls ran out 54-22 winners.
Scorers:
Blue Bulls
Tries: Van Zyl, Van Heerden, Jantjies, Odendaal, Prinsloo, Ismaiel, Gelant, Schoeman
Conversions: Jantjies 5, Jackson, De Beer
Yellow Card: Herbst, Campher, Mahlo
Golden Lions:
Tries: Dyantyi 2, Beerwinkel
Conversions: Reynolds
