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The Vodacom Bulls produced a heroic defensive effort and played the referee better than their opponents as they recorded a deserved 19-14 win over the rated Hurricanes in Wellington on Friday.
It was the Bulls’ fifth win in succession and they remain the only unbeaten side in the competition. They head the log by four points going into Saturday’s round of fixtures, but the impressive point about their position is that they have a game in hand on the other teams in contention after they took their bye last week.
The Bulls had their defence to thank for their home win against the Stormers two weeks ago and it was the same again. Although they shaded the battle for possession and their physical forward pack played well, the Hurricanes had a significant advantage in territory and spent most of the game in the Bulls’ half.
If ever a game was dominated by a referee, this was it. When the Bulls had Pedrie Wannenburg yellow carded halfway through the first half, they may have been disappointed, but it evened out quickly after that as Australian Matt Goddard, who also stopped the game every second minute to award a penalty or free-kick, started popping cards out of his pocket as if he was participating in a competition for magicians.
Ma’a Nonu was the next to go, just a few minutes before Wannenburg was due to come back, so it was 14 against 14 at that stage, but no sooner had balance been restored than it was the turn of the Bulls’ Deon Stegmann to leave the field.
Opposite number (well in the sense that he is also an openside flanker, of course the numbers on the shirts are different between South Africa and New Zealand) Scott Waldron then went off early in the second half for killing the ball at a ruck.
Whether or not a lot of these infringements could be classed as meriting a yellow card was questionable. But there should be no debate about the next one, this time a red, issued to Stegmann for a dangerous tackle that looked suspiciously close to a spear and can only be termed idiotic.
The same player had of course visited the bin earlier on, so there was no question he deserved a red -- perhaps even if the tackle had been viewed in isolation. While all of this was going on, Hurricanes lock Jason Eaton went to the bin, so for a while it was 14 Bulls against 13 Hurricanes (Waldron was off for part of the period Eaton was off).
Unbeaten Bulls outsmart Hurricanes
---------- Post added at 07:35 ---------- Previous post was at 07:33 ----------
5 yellows and a red