SMILES ALL AROUND AS SA TEAMS win

THE SOUTH AFRICAN Vodacom United Rugby Championship franchises produced a weekend of rugby to smile about as all four teams emerged victorious in their round 16 clashes, which saw the Bulls and Sharks cement their playoff spots and remain in the top four, while the Stormers leapt into sixth place on the standings.

The Lions also delivered on their promise to fight back strongly after five successive defeats in the Vodacom URC and EPCR Challenge Cup, which saw them outplay Connacht, with the result keeping them in the Race to Eight, although they trail the eighth-placed Benetton by six points with two pool matches remaining.

The Bulls took the field first on Friday night, and despite being outscored three tries to two, they secured a rewarding 26-19 victory over the defending champions, the Glasgow Warriors, in Scotland.

The Lions followed suit in Johannesburg on Saturday by beating Connacht 26-7, while the Stormers thumped Benetton 56-5 in Cape Town, before the Sharks made it four wins out of four as they produced a second-half comeback of note to topple Ulster 22-19 in Belfast.

These results saw the Bulls hold onto third place on the log (58 points) — one behind Glasgow — followed by the Sharks in fourth position (53 points), while the Stormers hopped up into sixth place (45 points), while the Emirates Lions remained on the lower end of the table in 13th position (35 points).

With the Investec Champions Cup and EPCR Challenge Cup semifinals playing out next weekend, the SA sides will have a well-deserved break before the Vodacom URC resumes on the weekend of 9-11 May.

The clash between defending champions in the Vodacom URC, the Glasgow Warriors, and last season’s runners up, the Bulls, at the Scotstoun Stadium on Friday lived up to expectations in a match of attrition as both sides ran hard at one another in the first half before the visitors took control in the second half to register a rewarding 26-19 victory.

The win for the Pretoria outfit — built on massive defensive hits where Springboks Jan-Hendrik Wessels and Canan Moodie led the charge — was not only significant in the sense that it wrapped up a successful tour with three wins in four matches, it also allowed them to bury the heartbreak of going down against the Warriors in last season’s Grand Final in Pretoria. — SuperSport.