South African teams fire back in dominant URC weekend

The majority of the South African United Rugby Championship (URC) teams fired back in what was largely a dominant weekend, with only the Stormers letting the side down.

Round five in the URC was a chastening one for the SA sides with all four teams losing, the Bulls, Lions and Stormers on the road, while the Sharks lost at home.

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However round six saw almost a complete reversal as the Lions, Bulls and Sharks picked up thumping wins, while the Stormers lost their final tour match and will hope for better results when back on home soil.

Half century

What made the weekend even more impressive was the Lions, Bulls and Sharks all passing the half century mark of points, as the Lions overran Zebre 61-19 at Ellis Park, the Bulls thumped Connacht 53-27 at Loftus and the Sharks thrashed Dragons 69-14 at Kings Park.

For the Lions it was just their second win of the URC season as they bounced back from their European tour where they won just one of four games, with an emphatic performance back home.

Outside centre Henco van Wyk and left wing Edwill van der Merwe both scored a brace of tries, eighthman Francke Horn was mightily impressive in scoring a try and creating another in a rampaging showing, while flyhalf Sanele Nohamba contributed 14 points with the boot.

The Lions had already snapped up their bonus point try in the 29^th minute and led 33-7 at halftime, before pulling away in the second half to an impressive nine try win.

Strong first half

The Bulls were made to work hard by a stubborn Connacht side but were ultimately too good thanks to a strong first half performance that set up their big win.

Four first half tries and 15 points from the boot of flyhalf Jaco van der Walt saw the Bulls clinch their bonus point before the break and take a superb 35-13 lead into halftime.

The second half was a tighter affair with the Bulls scoring three tries to Connacht’s two, while Van Der Walt took his points tally to 19 points, in the end earning him the man-of-the-match award.

The Sharks took some time to get themselves up and running, but a brutal second half performance saw them absolutely crush the hapless Dragons.

The first half saw just three tries, two to the hosts and one to the visitors as the Sharks led 15-7 at halftime.

They kicked it up a notch at the start of the second half with three tries in the first 14 minutes, before Dragons struck back making it 34-14 after 57 minutes.

A ridiculous final 19 minutes then saw the Sharks run rampant as they dotted down a further five times, all converted, to more than double their score and celebrate their first win of the URC season in style.

Dreadful tour

The Stormers will hope to put a dreadful away European tour behind them on their return to South Africa, after they lost their fourth straight away game in going down 31-24 to Cardiff.

Just like in their match against Benetton earlier this month, which they could have won but lost 20-17, the Stormers again threw away the match in Wales.

The Stormers flew into a 14-0 lead in the first 13 minutes, but allowed Cardiff to fight back and only led 17-14 at the halftime break.

They moved 24-14 up early in the second half, but again allowed the hosts to battle back to level the scores after 63 minutes.

The Stormers then had the better of the play in the final 15 minutes, but a combination of disastrous handling and decision making saw them make a slew of errors that allowed Cardiff to hit them with a sucker punch after the fulltime whistle, scoring the winning try to take the lead for the first time in the 82^nd minute.