Bulls face a crisis as Sunwolves take spoils

The Bulls are facing their biggest crisis since the dark days of 2002, when they failed to win a game, following the huge disappointment of their 21-20 loss to the lowly Sunwolves in Tokyo at the weekend.

The defeat, the first a South African franchise has suffered against the Japanese side, leaves the Bulls with just one win from their first six games, their worst start to a Super Rugby season since 2002, when they lost all 11 of their games in what was then the Super 12, and earned just one point the whole season.

“The coaches’ jobs are always on the line and if you’ve only won one from six then you are always going to be under pressure. Every Super Rugby coach is always under pressure, the fans are always demanding results. I know the board have a lot of faith in me, but we have to get results and fix it.

“Obviously there were individual performances that were unsatisfactory, but the whole team was not good enough. We know we have not produced the desired performances, but there are nine games left and seven of those are at home,” coach Nollis Marais said.

While the Bulls had enough ball to ram home their expected dominance over the Sunwolves, their error rate, poor breakdown work and lack of sharpness on attack meant they could gather no momentum, allowing their tena- cious hosts to frustrate them with a fiery defensive display.

“Our set-pieces functioned well, but we just could not utilise the ball as well as we wanted and there were lots of turnovers. Tactically we also weren’t good enough, especially in the first half,” Bulls captain Adriaan Strauss said.

“Conceding a lot of turnover ball means there is no constructive rugby. The Sunwolves were very good off the line in defence and we just couldn’t hold on to the ball.”