Bulls claim crucial Super Rugby victory over Stormers

Piet van Zyl was the match-winner for the Bulls

Scrum-half Piet van Zyl scored a crucial try for the Bulls to help secure a bruising 17-13 victory over South African rivals the Stormers at Loftus Versfeld and reignite their Super Rugby challenge.

The win came as a relief for the Bulls, who leapfrogged their opponents to go top of Africa Conference 1, after back-to-back defeats for the Pretoria-based side in Australia.

In a typically physical battle that saw stout defensive efforts from both sides, Van Zyl scored his team's only try to go with three penalties from fly-half Francois Brummer and a drop-goal by Tiaan Schoeman.

Centre Damian de Allende scored the only try for the Stormers to go with eight points from the boot of fly-half Jean-Luc du Plessis.

All the points in the first half came in the opening 14 minutes as the teams traded two penalties each to go into the break at 6-6.

The Stormers had the lion's share of the possession but met a blue wall of defenders on every attack and lacked the penetration needed to cross the tryline.

The home side were fortunate not to lose Brummer to at least a yellow card when he mistimed his jump in a contest in the air with Du Plessis and sent the Stormers No 10 tumbling to the ground head first in a sickening fall that he was fortunate to escape from unscathed.

The Bulls put some daylight between themselves and their opponents seven minutes after the break when Jan Serfontein's chip landed perfectly for full-back SP Marais and he was able to release Van Zyl to score.

The try went unconverted, but the home side stretched their lead to eight with a penalty shortly afterwards as momentum swung in their favour.

The Stormers, however, continued to see more of the ball and launched a series of battering attacks.

The blue defensive wall finally broke with 13 minutes remaining when incessant pressure from the visitors saw De Allende find a hole and sprint over for a converted try that cut the deficit to a single point.

Schoeman's drop-goal took the Bulls clear by four and they were able to hold out for what could be a crucial win in their season.