Flyhalf Morne Steyn scored 35 points as the Bulls beat the Brumbies 50-32 in their Super 14 match on Saturday.
Steyn scored two tries and kicked five conversions and five penalties as the defending champions recorded their second consecutive win in this year’s competition.
Man of the match Steyn turned in an almost flawless kicking performance for the South African side as he succeeded with 10 out of 11 kicks at goal.
PHOTO: EPA
The Brumbies had looked in control of the match as they led 27-20 after 50 minutes, but the Australian team succumbed to a powerful forward performance with the Bulls scoring 30 unanswered points to seal the victory.
Brumbies center Stirling Mortlock and Steyn traded early penalties before a period of sustained pressure saw Brumbies flank Rocky Elsom go over in the corner for an unconverted try in the 14th minute.
Steyn’s second penalty cut the deficit to two points before Elsom intercepted a loose Bulls’ pass on the halfway line with flank George Smith being on hand to take the scoring pass.
Mortlock succeeded with the conversion as the visitors moved into a 15-6 lead after 22 minutes.
Three minutes later, scrumhalf Fourie du Preez sneaked over on the blindside for a converted try.
Mortlock popped over his second penalty before the Bulls took the lead for the first time, with seven minutes left in the half, when Steyn dived over to score from close range before converting his own try.
With time running out in the half, Mortlock put the Brumbies back in the lead with his third penalty.
Flyhalf Matt Giteau ensured that the Brumbies enjoyed a good start to the second half as he slammed over a 30m drop goal before Mortlock’s fourth penalty pushed the visitors into a seven-point lead.
Steyn then kick-started the Bulls’ revival with a penalty of his own before right wing Gerhard van den Heever snapped up a loose ball to run 30m untouched and score his third Super 14 try.
As the match entered the final quarter, the home side wrapped up the bonus point for four tries when inside center Wynand Olivier crashed over the goal line.
Steyn kicked two penalties before he ended the Brumbies’ resistance when he crossed for his second try with less than five minutes left.
The visitors managed a consolation try as right wing Pat McCabe went over in the corner after the final whistle had sounded.
■STORMERS V WARATAHS
REUTERS, CAPE TOWN
South Africa wing Bryan Habana grabbed two second-half tries to help the Stormers beat the New South Wales Waratahs 27-6 in the Super 14 on Saturday.
New signing Habana, scorer of 36 tries in 57 tests, dived over in the 43rd and 55th minutes as the home team picked up their second straight win to climb to fourth in the table.
Fullback Joe Pietersen, who recorded 21 points in the opening round, added 12 more this time from three conversions and two penalties.
The Waratahs opened the scoring in the 18th minute with the first of two penalties from flyhalf Berrick Barnes, but the Australians could find no way through the home defense.
The Stormers claimed three unanswered tries and got their first on the half-hour when flanker Francois Louw burrowed over from a lineout drive that was referred to the television match official. Pietersen kicked the conversion for a 7-3 lead. The diminutive fullback then gave the home side a 13-3 cushion at the break with two penalties.
Barnes cut the deficit to seven points but any hopes of a second-half revival were dashed when Habana made it 20-6 after an opportunistic chargedown try from the restart. The Springbok then sliced through from close range to open a 21-point lead.
Revelations of positive doping tests for nearly two dozen Chinese swimmers that went unpunished sparked an intense flurry of accusations and legal threats between the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and the head of the US drug-fighting organization, who has long been one of WADA’s fiercest critics. WADA on Saturday said it was turning to legal counsel to address a statement released by US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) CEO Travis Tygart, who said WADA and anti-doping authorities in China swept positive tests “under the carpet by failing to fairly and evenly follow the global rules that apply to everyone else in the world.” The
Taiwanese judoka Yang Yung-wei on Saturday won silver in the men’s under-60kg category at the Asian Judo Championships in Hong Kong. Nicknamed the “judo heartthrob” in Taiwan, the Olympic silver-medalist missed out on his first Asian Championships gold when he lost to Japanese judoka Taiki Nakamura in the finals. Yang defeated three opponents on Saturday to reach the final after receiving a bye through the round of 32. He first topped Laotian Soukphaxay Sithisane in the round of 16 with two seoi nage (over-the-shoulder throws), then ousted Indian Vijay Kumar Yadav in the quarter-finals with his signature ude hishigi sankaku gatame (triangular armlock). He
RALLY: It was only the second time the Taiwanese has partnered with Kudermetova, and the match seemed tight until they won seven points in a row to take the last set 10-2 Taiwan’s Chan Hao-ching and Russia’s Veronika Kudermetova on Sunday won the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix women’s doubles final in Stuttgart, Germany. The pair defeated Norway’s Ulrikke Eikeri and Estonia’s Ingrid Neel 4-6, 6-3, 10-2 in a tightly contested match at the WTA 500 tournament. Chan and Kudermetova fell 4-6 in the first set after having their serve broken three times, although they played increasingly well. They fought back in the second set and managed to break their opponents’ serve in the eighth game to triumph 6-3. In the tiebreaker, Chan and Kudermetova took a 3-0 lead before their opponents clawed back two points, but
Taiwanese gymnast Lee Chih-kai failed to secure an Olympic berth in the pommel horse following a second-place finish at the last qualifier in Doha on Friday, a performance that Lee and his coach called “unconvincing.” The Tokyo Olympics silver medalist finished runner-up in the final after scoring 6.6 for degree of difficulty and 8.800 for execution for a combined score of 15.400. That was just 0.100 short of Jordan’s Ahmad Abu Al Soud, who had qualified for the event in Paris before the Apparatus World Cup series in Qatar’s capital. After missing the final rounds in the first two of four qualifier