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Cape Town - The Bulls provided further evidence of how far the mighty have fallen when they crashed to a shock defeat against the previously winless Sunwolves in their Vodacom Super Rugby clash in Tokyo on Saturday.
As it happened: Sunwolves v Bulls
The Bulls, the 2007, 2009 and 2010 Super Rugby champions, lost 21-20 after trailling 11-10 at half-time.
The Sunwolves scored two tries by No 8 Rahboni Warren Vosayaco and wing Takaaki Nakazuru. Pivot Hayden Cripps was on target with two penalties, while replacement Yu Tamura added a conversion and a penalty.
The Bulls replied with two tries through centre Burger Odendaal and wing Travis Ismaiel. Flyhalf Tian Schoeman added both conversions as well as two penalties, but a yellow card issued to Springbok centre Jan Serfontein in the 68th minute ultimately proved costly as coach Nollis Marais' horror year at the helm reached a new low.
The Sunwolves picked up four points for their victory, but stayed bottom of Africa Conference 1.
The Bulls ended their three-match tour with a single point and remained third in the same Conference - and all but out of the reckoning for a playoff spot.
In next weekend's Round 8 action the Bulls return home to Loftus Versfeld to host the Jaguares (Saturday, April 15 at 19:30), while the Sunwolves face a daunting task when they travel to Christchurch to face the unbeaten Crusaders (Friday, April 14 at 09:35 SA time).
Teams:
Sunwolves
15 Kotaro Matsushima, 14 Takaaki
Nakazuru, 13 Timothy Lafaele, 12 Derek Carpenter, 11 Kenki Fukuoka, 10
Hayden Cripps, 9 Fumiaki Tanaka, 8 Rahboni Warren Vosayaco, 7 Shuhei
Matsuhashi, 6 Yoshitaka Tokunaga, 5 Uwe Helu, 4 Liaki Moli, 3 Yasuo
Yamaji, 2 Yusuke Niwai, 1 Koki Yamamoto
Substitutes:
16 Takeshi Kizu, 17 Keita Inagaki, 18 Heiichiro Ito, 19 Sam Wykes, 20
Shunsuke Nunomaki, 21 Yuki Yatomi, 22 Yu Tamura, 23 Ryohei Yamanaka
Bulls
15 Warrick Gelant, 14 Travis Ismaiel, 13 Jan Serfontein, 12 Burger Odendaal, 11 Jamba Ulengo, 10 Tian Schoeman, 9 Rudy Paige, 8 Hanro Liebenberg, 7 Jannes Kirsten, 6 Nic de Jager, 5 RG Snyman, 4 Jason Jenkins, 3 Trevor Nyakane, 2 Adriaan Strauss (captain), 1 Lizo Gqoboka
Substitutes: 16 Jaco Visagie, 17 Pierre Schoeman, 18 Martin Dreyer, 19 Hendré Stassen, 20 Jacques Potgieter, 21 Ivan van Zyl, 22 Francois Brummer, 23 Franco Naude
