It was also a profitable weekend for the travelling sides, who finished on the winning end in all three matches.

The Lions opened the weekend’s fixtures on Friday by beating DHL Western Province 31-12 at City Park in Cape Town for their third win on the trot, which increased their points tally to 15.

They outscored their Cape hosts by five tries to two after leading just by 7-5 at the halfway stage, scoring four five-pointers in the second half while only allowing Province to cross the whitewash once in this league encounter.

The log leaders from Pretoria downed the Hollywoodbets Sharks 45-15 in their Saturday morning clash in Durban. The KZN side did well to edge their visitors 15-14 by halftime, however, it was an entirely different story in the second half. The Bulls increased the tempo, gained momentum which they never surrendered, and took their scoring chances as they whitewashed the Durbanites by a margin of 31-0 in the second stanza.

The Pretoria youngsters increased their league points to 15 and are sitting atop of the league table thanks to a better points differential than their Gauteng neighbours.

Playing in the weekend’s last fixture at Olen Park in Potchefstroom on Saturday morning, hosts Leopards found the Toyota Cheetahs too hot to handle and suffered a 50-0 loss at home. The Free Staters crossed the line for eight tries and slotted five conversions for their first win after two consecutive losses in the opening stages of the campaign.

Following the two Gauteng sides on the log are the Sharks on seven points, the Cheetahs moved to five, the same number as WP, while Leopards are yet to get off the mark.

These six teams will commence the second part of the league phase in two weeks’ time.