The Bulls lived up to the pre-match hype in hammering Benetton at Loftus in Pretoria.
They secured a top-four finish and a home quarterfinal in the United Rugby Championship.
The Bulls won 45-19 in a match that bordered on the brilliant and the bizarre.
The brilliant aspect was how easily the Bulls scored four tries before halftime to lead 26-5. The bizarre aspect was how easily the Bulls gifted Benetton 14 points either side of halftime.
Bulls loose forward Jeandre Rudolph, the Player of the Match, restored sanity just when Benetton started to believe they were in the contest at 26-19.
Rudolph won his third turnover of the match, placing him in the league’s top two turnover jackals, and crushed Benetton’s potential for a fourth try and any miracle comeback.
The Bulls smashed Zebre 54-19 in Pretoria a week ago.
Finishing the season with 99 match points from their last two league outings says everything about their form and ambition.
But their accuracy was not as compelling as the match points tally, and coach Johan Ackermann will bemoan those moments in which the Bulls seem to operate in neutral and reverse.
Bulls lock and captain Ruan Nortje emphasised the inconsistency in discipline, stating that if the Bulls want to advance past the quarterfinal, they can ill-afford stationary moments and poor decision-making on the ball.
The discipline reference concerned the attacking play and not foul play.
“We are delighted to host a quarterfinal, and I am proud of how the boys have fought for every win to make the playoffs, but we know we have to be better to win this title,” said Nortje.
The Bulls have played in three of the four tournament finals, losing one to Glasgow’s Warriors at home, losing last season’s final to Leinster in Dublin, and losing the first season’s final to the Stormers in Cape Town.
Benetton, who boast 12 Italian internationals in their match 23, lost 41-7 against the Sharks in Durban a week ago. They were more committed against the Bulls, but their performance was not much better.
The Bulls scored seven tries to three, with Rudolph outstanding, Nortje a close second and right wing Sergeal Petersen supreme in his finishing.
The Bulls, third in the league after the win, will probably finish the season fourth as defending champions Leinster are expected to win their final home match against the Ospreys of Wales.
The Stormers, who lost to Cardiff on Friday night, finished third after leading the league by a single point from the Warriors a fortnight ago.
The Stormers ended their 18-match campaign with 60 league points from 12 wins. Their points differential was 160. Remarkably, the Bulls, who endured a mid-season slump, finished with 12 wins, a points differential of 160 and 59 league points.
The Lions played Munster in the final match of the league season in Limerick on Saturday night. At the time of reading, they will have finished fifth or eighth.
The Sharks, who ended the league in 10th position, completed the Italian double in the past fortnight.
A week ago the Sharks beat Benetton in Durban and finished their season with a 54-19 win against basement dwellers Zebre.
The Italians won just two of 18 matches and conceded 587 points.
The Sharks won eight and drew one of their 18 matches.
They will not play in next season’s Investec Champions Cup, having missed the play-offs.
The Stormers are the only South African team to win the URC title, and the Bulls have played in the most finals.
The Lions will play in the quarterfinals for the first time.
The URC quarterfinals are at the end of May because next weekend is reserved for the Champions Cup final between Bordeaux and Leinster in Bilbao, Spain.
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