Mitchell salutes Gelant brilliance
WARRICK IS IN A GOOD SPACE AT THE MOMENT
Warrick Gelant was the obvious star of the Bulls’ commanding 4010 win over the Sharks in Durban at the weekend with his dazzling hat-trick of tries, but coach John Mitchell also praised the game-management of the fullback, as well as that of the halfbacks.
“Warrick had a great week of preparation and is in a very good space at the moment. Earlier in the season, he was trying to find some form but today it looked like he was really just enjoying himself on his playground. I was particularly pleased how Warrick and the other drivers of the game – Handre Pollard and Ivan van Zyl – managed the conditions very well.
“The conditions played a part and we always knew that we might have to go to Plan B. We were given a lesson in Christchurch about playing too much rugby in heavy rain in the middle of the field. We did still try to exploit the space out wide because we felt there was an opportunity against their back three, but field position and the set-pieces were critical today,” Mitchell said after the impressive bonus point triumph.
Three months into his first Super Rugby campaign with the Bulls, Mitchell said the players are getting more and more confident in the new plans he has for the team.
“We’re starting to see the blueprint coming through and the guys are getting more confidence and understanding, and it’s important that our fans, who have been through a lot of hard times, are starting to see reward as well. We have to keep scoring tries because the players are getting confidence from that.
“So we still need to identify parts of our game that can feed our attack better, we want to figure out how to attack more, to extract more opportunities from turnovers and transition phases, and there were some very good examples of that today,” a delighted Mitchell said.