Bulls 33
Chiefs 19
The Chiefs came with a plan for the Bulls. For 65 minutes they executed it well, but as coaches like to say, rugby is an 80-minute game.
Plans, too, are only as good as the people executing them and in the end individual errors cost the Chiefs any chance of momentum, and with that all hope of victory.
Now they face a near impossible chance to save their season. Starting with the Stormers in Hamilton on Friday, the Chiefs realistically need to win at least four, probably all five, of their remaining games.
"We had a plan and we implemented it pretty well to be honest," coach Ian Foster said.
"It kept us in the game and in a viable position for a long period, but [we] coughed the ball up two or three times in contact.
"We just released the pressure on them all the time."
For the Chiefs to have any chance of beating a well-organised Bulls, they needed everything to fall their way.
It didn't happen. As hard as they tried to skirt around and behind the Bulls, a pass would go astray.
Richard Kahui, the All Black centre, was the chief culprit.
He turned up to Waikato Stadium with a serious case of the dropsies.
"It's not often you see Richard cough the ball up three times under contact and clearly it took the pressure right off them," Foster said.
Stephen Donald, quite excellent in the first half, kicked like a drunk in the second. The injury ravaged Chiefs could not afford to have two of their best misfiring.
The Bulls had extra motivation, having never won in Hamilton and coming off a beating at the hands of the Blues.
"For us it's pleasing, we really dug deep this week. We had a great preparation. We had some good lessons from the Blues game we took into this one," coach Frans Ludeke said.
The game got off to a rousing start, thanks to the Bulls normally super-consistent first five-eighths.
Morne Steyn went from magic to Minties moment in the space of two first-half minutes.
First he batted the ball down, basketball style, to enable wing Gerhard van den Heever to burst through a gap and score unchallenged. He then contrived to miss the conversion from next to the posts, but it was to get worse.
Chasing back to regather a Brendon Leonard toe-through, Steyn muffed his pick-up not once, but twice and Leonard was left with a gift-wrapped try.
Although Pierre Spies added a first half try, the Chiefs were within spitting distance until the final quarter until the Bulls poured in two close-range tries. That secured a bonus point and got their campaign well and truly back on track.
Not so for the derailed Chiefs. They have yet to win a game at Hamilton this year.
It could be a long kiss goodbye to their season.
Bulls 33 (Gerhard van den Heever, Pierre Spies, Gary Botha, Dewald Potgieter tries; Morne Steyn 3 pen 2, con)
Chiefs 19 (Brendon Leonard try; Stephen Donald 4 pen, con).
Halftime: 15-13.
BIG BOOTS TO FILL
Even Ian Foster would have acknowledged that there could be easier opponents to face in your first Super 14 start at fullback than the Bulls.
Tim Nanai-Williams, however, did not look of place. The 20 year-old started confidently, one searing step in broken play leaving a would-be tackler for dead.
He can claim to have played a major part in Brendon Leonard's try, though that was a fortunate by-product of his chip-and-chase.
Perhaps he was surprised he was not tested more by Morne Steyn and Fourie du Preez.
