Leinster win URC again with 36-7 thrashing of Bulls

DUBLIN, June 19 : Leinster romped to a 36-7 win over South Africa’s Bulls to retain the United Rugby Championship in Friday’s final as they extended their record number of titles to 10.

The Irish side outscored the Bulls by five tries to one, getting out to an early lead as they showed greater attacking intent and capitalised on their opponent’s mistakes, condemning the Bulls to a fourth defeat in the last five finals.

Leinster scored tries through Tommy O'Brien, Rieko Ioane and Jack Conan in the first half and Sam Prendergast and Harry Byrne after the break, while Prendergast kicked over a penalty and three conversions and Byrne converted his own try.

The Bulls were 29-0 down before finally crossing over with Canan Moodie scoring and Handre Pollard converting.

The game was close to a carbon copy of last year’s final, also played at Croke Park where Leinster scored three tries in a 22-minute blitz after kick off and went onto win 32-7.

This time they took four minutes longer to score a trio of tries but again had the trophy wrapped up early in an impressive finish to the season after the disappointment of last month’s defeat in the European Champions Cup final to Bordeaux Begles in Bilbao.

Winger Tommy O’Brien pressed up onto Bulls flyhalf Pollard to force a handling error, kicking the loose ball forward and running almost half the field to score in the sixth minute

Ten minutes later quick thinking from scrumhalf Jamison Gibson-Park allowed Hugo Keenan to punch a hole through the visitors’ defence and feed to Ioane to score in the corner.

Desperate Bulls defending eventually cracked in the 26th minute as substitute Conan went off, having come on early for injured captain Caelan Doris. It was Conan’s fourth try in four separate URC finals.

Prendergast stretched over in the 46th minute to make the lead 29-0 before the Bulls managed to score through Moodie.

They had two other efforts contentiously chalked off after checks by the Television Match Official but any hopes of a comeback were never realistic and Byrne rounded off a deserved triumph as he went down under the posts near the end.

(Writing by Mark Gleeson in Atlanta; Editing by Ken Ferris and Pritha Sarkar)