Bulls beat Sunwolves 34-21 despite one-man down

Bulls 34-21 Sunwolves, Loftus Versfeld
Scorecard

A red card to Renaldo Bothma did not affect Bulls as they opened their account in this season of Super Rugby with a 34-21 victory over Sunwolves at Loftus Versfeld on Friday.

Fly-half Hayden Cripps got Sunwolves off the mark with second minute penalty but centre Jan Serfontein replied back with a try nine minutes later and a conversion from Handre Pollard took the home team to a four point lead.

After both fly-halves exchanged penalties, prop Pierre Schoeman went past the line for Bulls and Pollard's conversion stretched the gap to 11 points.

However, Sunwolves made a brief comeback at the stroke of half time with a penalty from Cripps followed by a touchdown from Kenki Fukuoka to reduce the trail to three points at the end of first half.

Bulls suffered a major setback at the start of the second half when Bothma was red-carded but Sunwolves failed to capitalise on the advantage. Jason Jenkins and Serfontein added further tries to seal a bonus point for Bulls while Sunwolves succumbed to a 13 point defeat despite Ed Quirk's try in the 70th minute.

This is Bulls first win in the tournament and they have retained their third position in Africa 1 group while Sunwolves are struck at fourth.