Bulls’ fit of the Blues after Auckland drubbing
HOW CAN a team so good be so bad?
That will certainly be the question that will haunt Bulls coach Nollis Marais for the better part of this week after his team sunk to yet another defeat this time at the hands of the Blues at the QBE Stadium in Auckland yesterday.
The Bulls are a far better team, on paper that is, than their results so far this season suggest but there should have been some alarm bells ringing for Marais, his management and the players in their losses against the Stormers and Cheetahs.
As if that wasn’t enough and ample warning for the Bulls to drastically do something ahead of their tour to New Zealand, they evidently stuck their heads in the sand even after an uninspiring win against the Sunwolves in their first home game last weekend.
But the wheels completely came off in Auckland yesterday as a porous and soulless second half showing saw them being put to the sword by an equally desperate Blues team who won convincing 38-14.
It was not as if the Blues played their best rugby since their glory years at the beginning of the competition almost 20 years ago; it was that the Bulls were a shadow of the giants they were just seven years ago.
The half-time scoreline of 7-7 may have flattered the visitors but their first half efforts all came crumbling down at the first change in gear by the Blues from a slugfest into a high speed dash which left the Bulls for dead.
As quickly as the Blues were able to run in an impressive five tries in that second half, the Bulls morphed from being a side rugby pundits feared would lead the South African challenge in Super Rugby this year to the cannon fodder they were at the turn of the century where they were the whipping boys of Super Rugby.
While the Blues were putting on an exhibition of the widening distance between New Zealand and South African rugby, the Bulls were showing the worst side and everything wrong with rugby at the moment in South Africa.
There was little or no defence to speak of and in the times that Marais’ men tried to stem the tides of attack from the Blues, their tackles were ineffective and lacked intent.
Marais conceded after the game that they would need to re-look at their defence which has leaked an astronomical 17 tries in four matches and it could get worse with the fixture against the unbeaten Chiefs looming large on Saturday. “Yes, obviously if you concede so many tries in the second half in every match then certainly defence is something we will need to revisit and look at,” he said.
The Bulls’ sterile performance was further compounded by the many elementary handling errors they committed with the few opportunities with ball in hand in the second half which could have stopped the score from ballooning beyond their reach.
By their own admission, the Bulls have struggled to put together phases of play, more so when in striking distance of the opposition try-line. And for some or other reason what has traditionally been their strengths, the scrum and lineout, have been nullified by their fear of keeping possession.
“We made too many errors and couldn’t convert from our line-outs. We also had too many handling errors and although we had a couple of opportunities in the second half, we didn’t convert them into points,” said Marais.
With only five days to go before taking on the Chiefs in Hamilton, the Bulls will need to rectify the ills of their way or painfully experience how a good team goes bad on a tour where things can get even worse. SCORERS: Blues 38 (7): Tries: Augustine Pulu, Matt Duffie (2), Ihaia West, Matt Moulds, Melani Nanai. Conversions: Piers Francis (2), West (2). Bulls 14 (7): Tries: Lizo Gqoboko, Rudy Paige. Conversions: Handre Pollard, Tian Schoeman.