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Cape Town - Western Province have defeated the Blue Bulls in their Currie Cup encounter at Newlands in Cape Town on Saturday.
As it happened: Western Province v Blue Bulls
The home side won 20-5 after drawing 5-5 at half-time.
A crazy opening spell of the game saw the Bulls open the scoring in the fifth minute shortly after having a clearance kick charge down on their own try line. If you can believe that.
Defending inside their own 22, Manie Libbok's attempted clearance was charged down by Chris Van Zyl.
However, at the ensuing ruck the Bulls somehow managed to turn the ball back over and send Embrose Papier the length of the rugby pitch for the visitors to open the scoring.
Province were dominant in response, especially at scrum time but it took some time for that determination to show on the scoreboard.
After an agonising 15 minutes for the host, just when it was starting to feel like they would never be able to breach the Bulls defence, Ruhan Nel stepped through a gaping hole and leveled the scores at 5-5.
The home side continued to dominate the tie and the Bulls never really got another sniff from this point.
While Western Province will definitely be disappointed they didn't score more on a day they were so clearly superior to the Bulls, they will be able to take a whole lot of heart from the performance.
Juarno Augustus added the third try two minutes after half time, this time SP Marais did convert, and the flyhalf completed the scoring with a 65th-minute penalty in an otherwise uninspiring and comfortable second half for Western Province.
Scorers:
Western Province
Tries: Ruhan Nel, Juarno Augustus, Craig Barry
Conversion: SP Marais
Penalty: Marais
Blue Bulls
Try: Embrose Papier
Teams:
Western Province
15 SP Marais, 14 Edwill van der Merwe, 13 Ruhan Nel, 12 Dan Kriel, 11 Seabelo Senatla, 10 Jean-Luc du Plessis, 9 Justin Phillips, 8 Juarno Augustus, 7 Ernst van Rhyn, 6 Jaco Coetzee, 5 Chris van Zyl (captain), 4 Salmaan Moerat, 3 Wilco Louw, 2 Scarra Ntubeni, 1 Corne Fourie
Substitutes: 16 Chad Solomon, 17 Kwenzo Blose, 18 Carlu Sadie, 19 JD Schickerling, 20 Chris Massyn, 21 Godlen Masimla, 22 Josh Stander, 23 Craig Barry
Blue Bulls
15 Divan Rossouw, 14 Cornal Hendricks, 13 Johnny Kotze, 12 Burger Odendaal (captain), 11 Rosko Specman, 10 Manie Libbok, 9 Embrose Papier, 8 Tim Agaba, 7 Wian Vosloo, 6 Ruan Steenkamp, 5 Lood de Jager, 4 Ruan Nortjie, 3 Wiehahn Herbst, 2 Jaco Visagie, 1 Simphiwe Matanzima
Substitutes: 16 Johan Grobbelaar, 17 Matthys Basson, 18 Conraad van Vuuren, 19 Jean Droste, 20 Roelof Smit, 21 Ivan van Zyl, 22 Marnitz Boshoff, 23 Dylan Sage
