The Bulls reached the quarter-finals of the Champions Cup for the first time ever after they thrashed Lyon 59-19 in Pretoria on Saturday.
Against a side that were clearly prioritising the Top 14, the South Africans ran rampant and constantly cut apart the visiting defence.
They touched down three times in the opening half-hour through Sebastian de Klerk, Embrose Papier and Marcell Coetzeee.
Although Martin Page-Relo’s effort reduced the arrears, Ruan Vermaak went over to ease them 28-7 ahead at the interval.
Lyon were handed a boost at the start of the second period after being awarded a penalty try following Despite Canan Moodie’s high tackle, they failed to capitalize.
Instead, with Moodie off the field, the Bulls won through Willie le Roux and Papier, who is strongly positioning himself in the Boks contention.
That made the outcome obvious, but David Kriel, Chris Smith, and De Klerk could still score late to finish the rout.
For this Champions Cup round-of-16 match, Lyon sadly selected a subpar lineup, and it showed. The Frenchmen were frequently off-loading out of tackles when the shackles were off, but their opponents were extremely merciless and they made a lot of mistakes.
It wasn’t long before the Bulls had gone over for the first time when Le Roux’s stunning pass out wide allowed De Klerk to get the ball rolling.
A few minutes later and the hosts were 14-0 in front, thanks to Papier, who had an easy run to the line after another error from the Top 14 team.
Credit must go to Kurt-Lee Arendse after the wing scythed through and fed the scrum-half for the score, but Lyon’s slow reaction to the turnover rather summed up their performance.
As would Coetzee’s try, with the flanker finding it all too easy to power through weak tackling to make it 21-0.
The visitors would hit back via a bizarre try when Page-Pelo crossed the whitewash while the Bulls players were stationary, thinking that time had been stopped by referee Luke Pearce.
Unperturbed, the South Africans responded and restored their 21-point buffer by the interval when Vermaak scored.
In the opening moments of the second half, Lyon showed improvement and pushed Moodie to make a mistake by tackling Page-Relo high. The visitors were given hope when that led to a penalty try and a yellow card, but that hope was soon dashed.
Even though they were down to 14 men, the Bulls prevailed and the Frenchmen failed to apply more pressure.
With 27 minutes left in the game, they scored twice while Moodie was off the field thanks to goals from Le Roux and Papier.
Although Abrahams managed to score one try back for Lyon, the hosts were still in complete control and used Kriel, Smith, and De Klerk to pad the score.
The teams
Bulls: 15 Willie le Roux, 14 Sebastian de Klerk, 13 Canan Moodie, 12 David Kriel, 11 Kurt-Lee Arendse, 10 Johan Goosen, 9 Embrose Papier, 8 Elrigh Louw, 7 Reinhardt Ludwig, 6 Marcell Coetzee (c), 5 JF van Heerden, 4 Ruan Vermaak, 3 Wilco Louw, 2 Johan Grobbelaar, 1 Gerhard Steenekamp
Replacements: 16 Akker van der Merwe, 17 Simphiwe Matanzima, 18 Mornay Smith, 19 Janko Swanepoel, 20 Nizaam Carr, 21 Zak Burger, 22 Chris Smith, 23 Devon Williams
Lyon: 15 Thaakir Abrahams, 14 Xavier Mignot, 13 Alfred Parisien, 12 Kyle Godwin, 11 Monty Ioane, 10 Paddy Jackson, 9 Martin Page-Relo, 8 Jordan Taufua (c), 7 Beka Saginadze, 6 Marvin Okuya, 5 Loann Goujon, 4 Theo William, 3 Paulo Tafili, 2 Guillaume Marchand, 1 Vivien Devisme
Replacements: 16 Yanis Charcosset, 17 Demba Bamba, 18 Mickael Guillard, 19 Ave Maalo, 20 Arno Botha, 21 Maxime Gouzou, 22 Ethan Dumortier, 23 Liam Rimet
Referee: Luke Pearce (England)
Assistant Referees: Adam Leal (England), Sara Cox (England)
TMO: Tom Foley (England)
