Bulls slow Waratahs charge

The Bulls slowed the NSW Waratahs' charge to the Super 14 finals night with a dour 20-6 victory at the Sydney Football Stadium.

Tries to winger Bryan Habana and prop Werner Kruger and two conversions, a penalty and drop goal from five-eighth Morne Steyn were enough to end the Waratahs' record-setting 11-match winning streak at the SFS.

The defeat relegated NSW to fourth spot on the ladder after nine rounds and put the Tahs' playoff hopes on a knife's edge.

With a derby against the Western Force in Sydney next Saturday night before a bye and a testing three-game stretch in South Africa to complete their home-and-away campaign, suddenly the Waratahs are under real pressure to qualify for the finals.

Boasting the biggest and meanest forwards in the tournament - not to mention three straight triumphs over NSW - the Bulls were always going to be a tough nut to crack.

Typically, the match was a dour one - with controversial South African referee Jonathon Kaplan not improving the contest as a spectacle with his pedantic controlling of play.

He called countless plays back for so-called forward passes - which replays suggested were not - and was heard to make one of the quotes of the year when asked by Waratahs prop Dan Palmer why he had awarded two straight scrum penalties in the second half.

"I can't remember," said Kaplan, who was roundly jeered by the exasperated crowd at fulltime.

The Bulls had led 7-3 at halftime following Habana's try in the 16th minute, after the visitors intercepted an errant lineout throw from NSW hooker Tatafu Polota-Nau inside the Waratahs quarter.

The Waratahs' only points before the break came from a penalty goal to five-eighth Daniel Halangahu after the halftime siren.

Steyn extended the Bulls' advantage to 10 points with his drop goal and penalty early in the second stanza before replacement flyhalf Kurtley Beale added a penalty - the last points of the night for the Waratahs, who again struggled with their attacking execution.

Kruger's try 12 minutes from time sealed the Waratahs' fate.

-AAP