Exeter Chiefs made light work of Pretoria-based Vodacom Bulls as they made it 10 points out of 10 in the Heineken Champions Cup with a convincing 44-14 victory.

The South African Bulls controversially travelled with a weakened side, preferring to rest players for their match against the Stormers on December 23, and they paid the price.

There was an early scare for Exeter after they had taken a fourth-minute lead with a Joe Simmonds penalty, with centre Stravino Jacobs finding a big gap in the Chiefs' defence to go through for a try three minutes later, converted by veteran Springboks fly-half Morne Steyn.

However, it was pretty much one-way traffic for the rest of the half as the Chiefs grabbed four touchdowns in the space of 25 minutes to have the try-scoring bonus point in the bag after only 36 minutes.

Man of the match Dave Ewers got the first, skipper and hooker Luke Cowan-Dickie then weighed in with two catch-and-drive tries, and Henry Slade raced over for the fourth after a great exchange of passes between locks Dafydd Jenkins and Jonny Gray.

Simmonds converted three of them and added a penalty on the stroke of half-time to make it 32-7 to Exeter at the break.

The onslaught continued after the interval as Cowan-Dickie completed his hat-trick in the 46th minute, converted by Simmonds, before being withdrawn as the Chiefs emptied their bench early.

In fact, all their replacements had been used by the 60th minute as centre Rory O'Loughlin (concussion), scrum-half Sam Maunder (cramp) and full-back Stuart Hogg (lower leg) all had to make way due to injury, and that was to be a factor in the closing stages.

The Bulls hit back with a 54th-minute try by Chris Smit after a fortunate bounce of the ball following a chip over the defence, with Steyn again adding the extras.

But Chiefs' impressive replacement centre Solomone Kata added what proved to be Exeter's sixth and final try three minutes later.

Exeter played out the last three minutes of the match with only 13 players following an injury to replacement scrum-half Will Becconsall and a yellow card for Ewers, but the Bulls were unable to capitalise on their extra men and made the very long journey home to South Africa empty handed.

The two sides will meet again in Pretoria in the New Year.