Bulls revert to knockout mode

Bulls director of rugby, Jake White (below), will focus on drilling his players on how to handle the intensity and pressure that comes with playing in the knockout stages of the Champions Cup.

As European rugby will take centre stage this weekend and next weekend, the stakes will be high. The Bulls host French Top14 side Lyon on Saturday at Loftus Versfeld (1.30 pm) in the last-16 of the Champions Cup.

The Bulls are looking to do better than last season’s finish in the Champions Cup, where they bowed out in the round-of-16. They are targeting a quarterfinal or semifinal spot in Europe’s premier competition.

The Pretoria side are going into their tie against Lyon on the back of a 47-14 drubbing by Irish province Leinster in the United Rugby Championship.

Leinster taught the Bulls a rugby lesson, they couldn’t keep up with all their internationals.

However, White feels the lessons they got from the heavy defeat will equip them for what’s to come in the Champions Cup.

“We will be better, I have no doubt,” White said.

“It’s probably a good lesson for us to play Leinster before we play Lyon in a knockout game because the next week if we get through we play the winner of Northampton and Munster. That’s not going to be easy either and the following week we play Munster in the URC.

“So, the next month is not going to be different to what we experienced (against Leinster) in terms of intensity, accuracy, and pressure.

“Those are the lessons we are going to have to put into our planning and hopefully into our preparations to get them to understand they have to be able to handle those situations against these good teams,” he said.

In the Pool stages, the Bulls finished in second place in Pool 1, enough to get them a home draw for the last-16.