Mitchell puzzled by referee’s decisions

Ken Borland

Bulls coach John Mitchell gave credit to the Stormers pack for outplaying his team up front, but added that his side had to work extra hard at Newlands to retain their composure after they were on the wrong end of referee Glen Jackson’s whistle for the second consecutive week.

Having denied the Bulls victory last weekend against the Highlanders with an 82nd-minte penalty, Jackson ensured they had to endure a torrid start against the Stormers with an early barrage of penalties against them.

“Our performance was very untidy and you have to give credit to the Stormers for their performance, I can honestly say they won the forward battle and the early races, and they dug deep when it really mattered. You must acknowledge when you are beaten. But things did not go for us.

“Even the refereeing decisions were a challenge, but we remained calm. I thought the referee was tough on us, we didn’t get the rub of the green, and there was not much consistency at all.

“We had to work hard to stay calm and not allow it to upset us. Especially at scrum time, with things like knees on the ground, those sort of calls could go either way,” Mitchell said after the 29-17 defeat.

Despite trailing 12-0 in as many minutes, the Bulls fought back impressively to lead 17-12 after 48 minutes, but Mitchell was disappointed his team did not identify that that was the time to dictate field position.

“We got back in the game but we did not take command of that position. That’s something we have to learn, the performance may not be there but you have to learn to fight.

“If we had commanded field position then we could have made different decisions, and we got a little bit out of their yellow card but we didn’t have enough field position,” Mitchell said.