Away defeats leave Bulls and Sharks in must-win territory

The Bulls and Sharks left themselves vulnerable to top-eight exclusion with away defeats in the United Rugby Championship (URC) on Saturday.

The Sharks went down 32-20 to the Scarlets in Llanelli and the Bulls followed their example with a 32-23 defeat at the hands of Ulster in Belfast.

Though the Bulls rumbled with intent in certain passages, they were unable to contain Ulster in the moments that mattered. They faded in the second half, partly due to poor discipline.

The visitors went into the break 20-12 up but that lead soon shrank. Elrigh Louw’s yellow card just after the restart did not help their cause.

Ulster immediately made the most of their opposition being a man short when they scored a converted try. The Bulls held out for the rest of Louw’s time in the bin, but he had barely returned when Ulster struck again.

Though the Bulls stayed in the contest, a yellow card to Bismarck du Plessis also undermined them in the closing minutes.

The Bulls scored tries through Kurt-Lee Arendse and Zak Burger, while Chris Smit added three penalties and two conversions.

Seventh in the points table, the Bulls should secure a top-eight spot when they host struggling Zebre Parma in April before closing their league commitments against Leinster.

In Llanelli, Sharks director of rugby Neil Powell lamented his team’s poor discipline that saw them slip to a third straight defeat in the URC.

“It was obviously a disappointing performance from us and the result as well,” Powell said. “It was again a game where we let ourselves down because of our ill-discipline. Again, too many penalties that we put ourselves under pressure. 

“We also had unforced errors. We knew coming into this game that the Scarlets were feeding off those opportunities and those scraps, and unfortunately we gave them those scraps and they scored two of their tries off our mistakes.”

Earlier on Saturday, the Lions did them a huge favour by downing Benetton in Treviso and keeping their slim top-eight hopes alive.

The Lions delivered a stinging rearguard action, trailing 28-13 at the three-quarter mark, but scored three tries in seven minutes to bag an improbable but impressive win.

“To win away from home against a Benetton team that is flying is big for us,” head coach Ivan van Rooyen said. “The message for us after the game was we should control what we can control and not leave the outcome of the game to other people.”

The Lions turned things around in the last 20 minutes. “That is probably how we need to start against Racing,”  Van Rooyen said about next weekend’s Challenge Cup knockout match against Racing 92 in Johannesburg.

“They are travelling and we are travelling back. We will need to be really accurate in training. We need to start like a house on fire against them.”

The Lions’ resources will be stretched over the next few weeks with activity on three fronts in the Challenge Cup, the URC and the Currie Cup.

“We don’t have the luxury of splitting teams between URC and the Challenge Cup. We spoke to the players about that,” Van Rooyen said.

“Hopefully we will do a bit of travelling still over the next four to six weeks, which means we will be alive in those competitions. It is important for us to keep it simple and just prepare the guys as well as possible.”