It was the second consecutive weekend of four victories for the South African teams, and the Cell C Sharks, DHL Stormers and Vodacom Bulls all occupy spots in the top-eight on the standings, while Emirates Lions helped their compatriots with a superb 23-21 win over Irish giants Munster on March 19.
The local sides also stepped up their attack and defence. Last week, they scored 19 tries and conceded eight, but this weekend they upped that to a combined 22 tries while conceding only five.
The Bulls bagged nine five-pointers in their 57-12 thrashing of Scarlets on Friday evening, and the Sharks and Stormers kept clean sheets. The Durbanites beat Zebre Parma by 38-6 on Saturday, and the Capetonians were too strong for Cardiff, winning by 40-3 on Sunday.
The Sharks are now in sixth position on 36 log points, followed by the Stormers in seventh on 34, and the Bulls in eighth on 32, but they have a game in hand on most of their closest rivals. The Lions won their fourth game of the season and moved up to 13th spot with 21 log points.
This weekend, the Lions host the Ospreys from Wales in Johannesburg (Friday at 19:00), the Stormers welcome Irish powerhouse Ulster to Cape Town (Saturday at 15:00), the Sharks take on Scottish club Edinburgh in Durban (Saturday at 17:05), and the Bulls face Welsh club Dragons in Pretoria (Saturday at 19:15).
