Will Bulls use ‘different style’ from SA A?

ANY provincial coach would be happy to get one over a national team, so it was no wonder that Jake White was smiling after seeing his Bulls team pull off a 17-14 win over South Africa ‘A’ at the weekend.

But what was of greater importance was the performance, and the former Springbok coach was delighted with the way his young pack stood up physically, and how the Pretoria side were able to create try-scoring opportunities at Cape Town Stadium.

Those improvements bode well for Wednesday’s Currie Cup clash against the Sharks in Durban, especially after the implosion in the Rainbow Cup final against Benetton in Italy last month.

With Johan Goosen at flyhalf, the Bulls looked to have a backline capable of testing the SA A defence properly, but they needed the forwards to win enough ball in the set-pieces and collisions.

And they were able to do just that. They stood strong in the scrums, where even veteran Jacques van Rooyen was busy in the unfamiliar tighthead position, while locks Walt Steenkamp and Ruan Nortje proved that they are more than just lineout specialists by getting stuck in on defence.

The loose trio of captain Nizaam Carr, Muller Uys and WJ Steenkamp got the better of their direct opponents Marco van Staden, Rynhardt Elstadt and Kwagga Smith in most aspects of play.

“We played a different style to what we usually play in the Currie Cup. We tried to do a couple of new things that they haven’t seen. Our pack, a lot of young forwards, and they really fronted up nicely,” White said.

“I’m very excited about the fact that we tried different combinations, and the forward pack are young. It’s all about creating some depth and getting them to play in different combinations – I’m stressing that we played a different game to what we did before. They were physical and didn’t back down to the physical contest.”

That set the platform for Goosen to run the show on attack, and he sparked both tries with a line-break and offload for Keagan Johannes and Johan Grobbelaar to score.

“He is an unbelievable rugby player. You saw today, that’s the first time he’s played with this group of players, with those nines … and he still looks as though he knows what’s going on,” White said about the new Bulls No 10.

“He made one or two mistakes, which is normal. But he breaks the line, he’s quick, kicks well, defends really bravely. I always say, when you’ve got a great 10, you can play rugby. That’s why we were so lucky that we could vary our game.

“It wasn’t the same Bulls mauling, scrumming – it was a little bit of throwing the ball around and trying to do things a little bit differently to what we’ve been doing the last year.

“That’s why it’s going to be good for us, because when we play overseas or Currie Cup teams, we are not going to get too many better lessons than what we got in this game in the first 40 minutes. We were camping on their tryline and just couldn’t break their defensive line.”