The Bulls led from the seventh minute of the game and were up by as much as 23 at one stage, but didn’t have it all their own way, particularly in the second half with Pirates hitting back hard, and playing with a man advantage for the last 16 minutes.

For about five of those the Bulls were two down with Heath Riggs red-carded for striking.

Matt Wannan had earlier been given a 10 -minute spell as the home side closed to within 11 with their second try in four minutes.

Jake Douglas got the first off a penalty quick-tap about 5m out.

Chris O’Connor then finished off a break from prop Dave Irvine, with the conversion making  it 31-20 with 16 to go.

Ben Carrigan stemmed the flow of points with his fifth penalty, which kicked them back out to two converted tries in front.

They held that until just over three to go when Wannan crashed over to seal it and secure the bonus point.

It was almost a carbon copy of their three other tries with the forwards punching one off the ruck until a hole opened up.

That was where they really stung Pirates.

Bulls co-coach Peter Copeman did remark that the ball never really got wide, certainly as much as they would have liked, but they showed why they are one of the premiership favourites.

“We’ll take the win, and the bonus point, which is what we needed,” he said. 

They controlled possession and territory for most of the first half, but while threatening to score on a few occasions, it was only Carrigan’s boot that kept the score churning over.

Eventually their dominance paid off with skipper Ben Colley snuffing out some space beside the ruck.

Minutes later prop Maciu Latabua did the same after seven or so phases of pick and drives.

The home side eventually got on the board through the boot of James Trappel but right on half-time Carrigan landed his fourth to make it 24-3 at the break.

Making Pirates job even harder they had to start the second half with only 14 after James Bellamy was yellow-carded.

“I thought we played pretty well in the first half,” Copeman said.

“We started slowly and fell off a lot of tackles.”

But once they clicked into gear they were hard to stop.

“I thought our ball control in the forwards once we got on a roll was a lot better,” Copeman said.

“And our defence was good, and lineout and scrum were pretty good, which is what you need against them.”

For Pirates it was an all too familiar story.

“There was some good football from us out there,” coach Andrew Verrell said.

“(But) Again we were just our own worst enemy.”

They just made too many errors, especially in the first half.

As a consequence they didn’t have a lot of ball.

“But we defended well,” he said.

“I think they just wore us down.”