Cardiff left Pretoria empty-handed as Vodacom Bulls showed no mercy with a brutal performance at altitude.
The home side scored 40 unanswered points after Harri Millard gave his side a dream start in the BKT United Rugby Championship.
It was a chastening defeat for Cardiff, who are battling for a place in the URC play-offs for the first time, and the only time this season where they have failed to take any points from a game.
They travelled to South Africa with the vast majority of their Wales Six Nations contingent and were able to the same starting XV that brought reigning URC Champions, Leinster’s 11-match winning run to an end earlier this month.
But they faced a full-strength Bulls side, still smarting from their home defeat to DHL Stormers a week ago, and they showed no mercy.
The Blue & Blacks, playing in their alternate pink strip, made the perfect start in Pretoria as Ben Thomas pounced on loose ball and offloaded out of contact to send Millard clear.
Sheedy added the extras from in front of the sticks, to give his side a seven-point lead after less than three minutes.
However, Cardiff were getting on the wrong side of the referee under Bulls pressure and soon lost Alun Lawrence to the sin-bin. That allowed the home side to kick to the corner and Marcel Coetze was able to power over.
Pollard converted from the corner to level the scores and Sheedy had the chance to nudge Cardiff narrowly in front, following fine work from Liam Belcher at the breakdown, but was off target.
Moments later a monstrous 50-20 from double World Cup winning fly-half gave the Bulls attacking position, and while Cardiff initially held strong, the home side soon rumbled over.
They could perhaps feel hard done by the penalty given against Ben Thomas, for ripping the ball from contact, but there was no stopping the Bulls rolling maul with Johann Grobbelaar the beneficiary.
Cardiff were battling hard but uncharacteristic mistakes were letting the Bulls off the hook. This was again the case when Dan Thomas burst through the Bulls midfield and looked to put Aled Davies away, although the scrum-half could fairly argue that the dropped pass went backwards.
Bulls looked to have grabbed a third try on 24 minutes but TMO replays showed Embrose Papier blocked Cam Winnett as he looked to get out the way of a rampaging Nizaam Carr.
However, they did not have to wait long as a moment of magic from Kurt-Lee Arendse put David Kriel away. Pollard converted to make it 19 unanswered points as the Bulls led 19-7.
More Arendse magic secured the fourth try as he tore Cardiff apart on the counterattack and put Papier away.
Pollard converted from wide to make it 26-7 with half-time approaching and the Bulls’ Springboks continued to run Cardiff ragged.
Some fine work from Caden Moodie gave the Bulls good attacking position as the clock approached half-time but to call the speculative hack across the pitch from Carr to Elrigh Louw fortuitous would be an understatement.
However, it was a brutal blow to Cardiff who went into the break trailing 33-7.
The handling errors and indiscipline continued to hamper Cardiff after the break and denied them any opportunity to build pressure.
Ruan Vermaak was next to cross for the hosts but both the Bulls and Cardiff were unable to add anything further scores despite both teams having opportunities.