Bulls charge sinks Chiefs
Defending Super Rugby champions the Bulls revived their hopes of a place in this season's finals with a 43-27 win over the Chiefs.
Last Updated: 30/04/11 7:26pm
Defending Super Rugby champions the Bulls revived their hopes of a place in this season's finals with a 43-27 bonus-point win over the Chiefs.
The Pretoria-based side ended a run of three successive defeats which had seen them take a rapid tumble down the standings.
And their hopes of a successful title defence looked to have slipped away completely when they 20-3 behind in the first half at Loftus Versfeld.
But they then went on a scoring blitz either side of the break, with Wynand Olivier twice touching down while Morne Steyn did not miss a kick as he added 23 points.
Gerhard van den Heever and Pierre Spies also crossed the try-line to secure the much-needed bonus point.
The Chiefs had surged into their early lead thanks to tries from Deon Stegmann and Brendon Leonard as they took advantage of some poor tackling from the hosts.
Points
Stephen Donald was also looking assured with the boot, adding 10 points as the Chiefs opened up a 17-point advantage just before the break.
However, Olivier began his side's revival on 35 minutes by running onto a pass from Gary Botha to score under the posts and, after converting, Steyn added a penalty with the final kick of the half to bring the gap down to seven points.
The deficit was then quickly turned into a match winning-lead in a devastating 10-minute spell after half-time that saw the Bulls run in three tries.
South Africa centre Olivier combined with Stephan Dipenaar for his second a minute after the restart before Van den Heever and Spies crashed over to turn the match completely around.
Steyn also kept the scoreboard ticking over with his boot and his fourth penalty in the 68th minute made the win safe at 43-20.
The Chiefs did manage to score a late consolation try, though, when Fritz Lee shook off Zane Kirchner and ran 40 metres to touch down.
