Bulls rid of ‘conservative’ ways
OVER the years, the Bulls have been regarded as a 10-man team, especially during the bad old days of apartheid when Naas Botha used to boot the then-Northern Transvaal to victory.
They would have a huge pack of dominant forwards and a halfback combination of Robert du Preez and Botha that would kick the opposition to pieces … and not much else.
But there is no doubt that Jake White’s Bulls of 2022 are changing that perception, and it’s borne out in the United Rugby Championship statistics as well.
Many of their strike-runners such as Kurt-Lee Arendse and Madosh Tambwe are ranked high in running metres and other attack skills competition lists, and the most important number is the 57 tries that the Pretoria-based team have scored.
That ranks them in third place for most touchdowns of the topeight teams on the standings, behind Irish giants Leinster (68) and Munster (58), with the next best being the Stormers on 53.
And it’s not every day that you would hear a Bulls captain speak about shaking off the “old conservative way of just bashing”, but that is exactly what Marcell Coetzee said this week ahead of tomorrow’s must-win clash against Glasgow Warriors at Loftus Versfeld in Pretoria.
“What makes this Bulls team specifically unique is that we have started to develop a very expansive brand of rugby. Our back-three is phenomenal in that regard. They lead it. And if the game needs to be made slower and we need to go to the set-pieces, we are able to do that,” Coetzee said after they dotted down six tries against Benetton last week, with Arendse grabbing two.
“If we want to open things up a bit and we want to put a bit of tempo on it, we can do that as well now. Instead of just the old conservative way of just bashing, we can bring the offload game in as well, and we identified that as an area where we can definitely grow.
“We are very happy with our attack at the moment. We’ve got a bit of a new dimension this year, and we are seeing a lot of value from it.”
But Coetzee – who turns 31 next month – wants to see an improvement on defence against Glasgow. While last Saturday’s 46-29 victory over Benetton was sweet revenge for the Rainbow Cup final defeat, the fact that they conceded so many points is a concern.
The Bulls have also given away the third-most tries out of the topeight teams with 36, with Leinster only conceding 25 and Munster 26.
“With the defence, maybe the guys can take a bit of selfownership ... There are sometimes soft moments, where we get the opposition into the game, and those are fixables at the end of the day. It’s just that players have to take some self-responsibility
– do his extras, do a bit more homework – because the system looks after itself,” Coetzee said.
“We all adapt to the system, and if each guy stands up in his area, then we will cut out those moments. Sometimes we give away penalties too easily for the opposition, which keeps them in the game.
“When you talk about our attack, we are scoring very good tries. But the penalties let them back in, and the score margins build up. So, I think if we can just eliminate those areas, then things will be much easier for us.”