Mitchell: We’re a work in progress
Ken Borland
New Blue Bulls Currie Cup head coach John Mitchell says the development of new goals has not been part of his new broom sweeping clean at Loftus Versfeld as his team heads to Nelspruit to take on the Pumas tonight and try to return to the top four.
Mitchell acknowledges the importance of getting results against teams like the Pumas.
“We haven’t set new goals, we’re staying on our original task, although we are putting in more work in a couple of areas of our game that we’d like to improve. We need to get more consistent. We still have the opportunity to make the top four, that’s our objective, but we need to take it one game at a time.
“But building the club is more important than just counting wins and losses and we have to put the same blueprint through the whole club, the players need it in their roots. As the flagship team, obviously the performance of the Blue Bulls is important, we have to build the club first if we’re going to get back to greatness.
“The Currie Cup is a major tournament and vital for the development of Super Rugby players, so I’m also keeping an eye on who is capable of stepping up. The competition is very much a selection process and I presume the other directors of rugby are doing that too,” Mitchell said.
To that end, youngsters like centre JT Jackson and scrumhalf Andre Warner are starting, while more seasoned stars like flanks Jannes Kirsten and Boom Prinsloo and prop Lizo Gqoboka are also back in the run-on XV.
The importance of starting well was highlighted by the way they hit Griquas hard and fast last weekend, and the Bulls will have to be much more solid defensively. They are trying a new system and Mitchell is confident the players are starting to get it right.
“The defence has been an area of weakness for some time, not just in the Currie Cup, and we are very much in-between the old and new ways. The new system places greater demands on them so they have to be more conditioned, they have to reload quicker and have higher energy,” Mitchell said.