The Vodacom Bulls beat the Scarlets 54-26 in Round 5 of the United Rugby Championship on Saturday, scoring eight tries to take the maximum five log points. The Scarlets had pulled all the way back to 26-26 in the second half. The Bulls answered with 28 unanswered points.
MAN OF THE MATCH | JEANDRE RUDOLPH
Johan Ackermann made 13 changes to his matchday 23 after a run of injuries, eight of them to the starting XV. Handré Pollard was unavailable with a hamstring problem and Curwin Bosch started at fly-half.
Hanro Liebenberg captained the side. Marcell Coetzee, the regular captain, started on the bench after being cleared of a foul-play charge at a disciplinary hearing on Wednesday.
The Scarlets handed debuts to lock Tom Allen, who arrived from the Hurricanes, and loose-head prop Corey Domachowski. Josh Macleod captained the Welsh side.
Three Tries Before The Break
Jeandre Rudolph scored the first try inside the opening quarter. Willie le Roux went over shortly afterwards and Dylan Maart added the third before the half-hour.
Bosch converted twice and the Bulls led by 19.
The Scarlets came back in the closing ten minutes of the half through hooker John McKee and then Sam Lousi, with Carwyn Leggatt-Jones converting one of the two. Half-time went down as Bulls 19, Scarlets 12.
That seven-point gap flattered nobody. The Bulls had scored three tries to two and had given away enough ball for the visitors to stay inside touching distance.
The Scarlets Level It At 26-26
Coetzee came off the bench and scored early in the second half, Bosch converted, and the Bulls moved to 26-12.
Stedman Gans was then yellow-carded around the 47th minute. A sin-bin is ten minutes of playing time, not ten minutes of stoppages, so the Bulls were a man short for a sizeable chunk of the third quarter.
The Scarlets scored twice more and converted both. At 26-26 the match was level for the first time all evening.
Ackermann had spent the build-up warning against exactly this. He had described the Scarlets as a side that attacks really well and had made the point that the scrappy 34-26 win over Ulster the week before was no licence to coast.
Coetzee settled it. His second try put the Bulls back in front at 33-26, and from there the visitors did not score again.
Sebastian de Klerk crossed on the hour mark, Johan Grobbelaar followed, and Maart finished with his second inside the last ten minutes. Bosch converted all three.
Bosch ended the night with seven conversions from eight attempts, which is where a large part of the final margin came from.
Simon Thomas of Nation Cymru reported that the Scarlets had two further tries ruled out while they trailed 33-26 with roughly twenty minutes left. Four tries stood, two did not, and a scoreline that read 33-26 at one point finished 54-26.
| Stat | Bulls | Scarlets |
|---|---|---|
| Tries | 8 | 4 |
| Conversions | 7 of 8 | 3 of 4 |
| Half-time | 19 | 12 |
| Final score | 54 | 26 |
| Log points | 5 | 1 |
Where The Bulls And Scarlets Stand In The United Rugby Championship
Five log points is the maximum available from a single fixture: four for the win and one try bonus, which goes to any side that scores four tries. The Bulls had the win inside the first half-hour of the second half and the bonus point well before the end.
The Scarlets scored four tries of their own, so they take a try bonus point out of the match despite losing by 28. It is the only thing on the ledger for them, and at 14th going into the round they needed considerably more.
The Bulls went into Round 5 with three wins from four and came out of it with four from five.
They have now won all three of their home meetings with the Scarlets at Loftus Versfeld, after 57-12 in 2022 and 63-21 in 2023. The head-to-head record across all six meetings stands at 4-2 to the Bulls, whose most recent away win in the fixture was 23-21 in Llanelli in April 2026.
This was the Bulls’ last home United Rugby Championship fixture of 2026. They close the first block of the season on a bonus-point win, with the November international window next and Ackermann’s squad due to lose players to it.
For the Scarlets, the South African tour ends with four tries, one log point and a third defeat in five.
