Bulldogs in fight to get out of rut
Border side look to first halves as inspiration that a win is possible
THE Border Bulldogs will have their work cut out for them as they prepare to take on the South Western District Eagles in their SuperSport Rugby Challenge match at Outeniqua Stadium in George on Friday night.
The Bulldogs have endured a difficult start to this year’s competition, suffering two heavy defeats against the Boland Kavaliers and Western Province respectively, and they now face a tough away task against a fired up Eagles outfit.
The Bulldogs will need to call on the effort they put in against the Kavaliers and Western Province in the first half of both games, where they led Boland at the break and held Province level until the dying minutes.
“The first half I could take, but the second half was poor. We took the foot off the pedal and gave away soft tries in both games,” said Bulldogs coach Tiger Mangweni.
“If you are a fit team you can hold out and continue to play well for most of the game, but if you are not 100% fit you will end up fading and making mistakes late in the games, so we need to work on that.”
The Eagles will also be brimming with confidence, having snapped their wretched competition run that had seen them go through the entire first competition without a win, by winning their first game of this year’s tournament this past weekend.
They picked up a 34-20 win over the Eastern Province Elephants and they will thus be eager to continue that form against the Bulldogs.
“SWD are a good side. They are going to come hard at us and we are going to have to match them,” said Mangweni.
“It is a big game against a physical team and they are going to try and take us upfront, so we must be ready for that.”
The Bulldogs currently sit second bottom of the South section log, having not picked up a point yet and only ahead of EP on points difference.
They will be very keen to pick up some much-needed points and try to get their campaign up and running.
“This is what we have been looking for. We don’t want to get ahead of ourselves, but I back the boys and believe we can get a win in George,” said Mangweni.
“I just need the guys to stay focused and put in a good shift for at least 70 minutes and we can come away with the points.”
However, a worry for the Bulldogs over the coming days will be injuries, with a couple of players struggling with various problems.
“One of our worries now is at tighthead prop. We lost Lwando Mabenge against Boland to injury, and now Blake Kyd got a calf strain in this game (against Western Province), so over the next week the doc and physio have to work tirelessly to get them back, or we may have to look at a club player to fill that spot,” said Mangweni.
Friday night’s match kicks off at 6pm.