Getting in the Bulls’ heads worked for WP

Rudolph Jacobs

Western Province had intended to land a psychological blow at Loftus Versfeld last week, ahead of this week’s Currie Cup semifinal showdown with the Blue Bulls at Newlands, according to the Cape team’s coach John Dobson.

They achieved their goal by demolishing their opponents with a 34-7 win in Pretoria, which made Province firm favourites to reach their second straight final.

“What we wanted to do going up to Loftus was to make it very daunting for the Bulls to be coming down to us for the play-offs,” Dobson said.

“The talk last week was to make it daunting for them and more or less make a statement.”

Dobson also revealed how they managed to work up their powerhouse tighthead prop Wilco Louw (right), with Province’s powerful scrum expected to hold a big edge again this weekend.

“We heard some rumours last week that the Bulls were going to target Wilco, so we challenged him,” he said.

“When he is charged up he is like an angry little diesel machine, and obviously the conditions helped.”

With Dillyn Leyds probably returning to fullback and Damian Willemse moving to flyhalf, it could be tough to drop Joshua Stander to the bench, after he was outstanding against the Bulls.

“Josh was great in the conditions and people are talking him up. He has been making a lot of progress,” Dobson said.

“But guys like SP Marais, Sergeal Petersen and Damian were really great in those testing conditions up at Loftus.”

Dobson had to leave guys like EW Viljoen and Dillyn Leyds in Cape Town, which he admitted was tough.

“With the competition down to six games, every game has been a must-win situation,” he said.

“So we felt the pressure from minute one in the first game against the Cheetahs and you can’t just simply give guys like Justin Philips or EW Viljoen a run for the sake of it.”