After putting Western Province to the sword in Cape Town last week the Bulls were again in rampaging form, running in 10 tries to beat the Sharks 64-0 at Loftus Versfeld.
The Sharks’ two matches away from home at the start of the competition have not gone to plan. Their Loftus humiliation came on the back of a big loss against the Lions at Ellis Park last weekend.
The Bulls, however, have rampaged out of the blocks with No.8 Jeandre Rudolph very much in the vanguard with two successive man of the match awards.
“The players around me make it easy to do my job. I don’t have to worry about them, I can just focus on what I need to do.
“We wanted a solid performance. It was our first home game and we wanted to make the crowd proud and to follow up last week’s good performance,” he said in reference to their victory over Western Province in Cape Town.
“We have a couple of young guys in the team who keep going at it, and it keeps us old guys on our toes. It was a solid performance by the boys.”
Captain Nama Xaba was also pleased with the performance, though he remained rooted in reality.
“We always want to strive for perfection but it is unrealistic to get there. Tonight’s performance was excellent. We managed the first 20 according to plan and the mid-40. It took us forward. I’m proud of the guys.”
Xaba pointed to the breakdown as an area for improvement. “They put us under pressure there. The set piece was good. I can’t complain about much. A week is a long time in rugby and we have to look to build on this.”
For the Sharks it was another day to forget. “We can’t feel sorry for ourselves,” said downcast captain Nick Hatton.
“That was tough to take. Credit to the Bulls, They dominated the game. We got a tough lesson.
“A lot of the young guys showed some fight towards the end. We were outdone physically which was disappointing for us that we didn’t stand up physically.
“It is a privilege to wear this jersey and we are not doing it justice at the moment. We are going to pick ourselves up. We are not going to feel sorry for ourselves and do what we need to do and stay in the fight. All we can promise is that we’ll keep on fighting,” Hatton added.
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