Bulldogs to fire with all guns blazing

EXCITING rugby action is back in East London tomorrow as the city’s premier team, the Border Bulldogs, welcome the visiting Windhoek Draught Welwitschias for their Currie Cup First Division clash at the BCM Stadium.

Border have had a week’s break between their first match of the competition, a 26-24 loss to the Leopards, and their second match, so the team will need to hit the ground running against a team who has played on the last two weekends.

“Anything can happen on the day, so we want to get straight into the thick of things,” said Border Bulldogs coach Elliot Fana.

“The guys are eager to get back on the field and do the business.”

Despite losing their opening match Border picked up two valuable bonus points for finishing within seven points of the Leopards and scoring four tries in the match.

This sees them sitting fourth on the log, with the Valke, who have also only played one match and the Welwitschias both below them on one point.

The Welwitschias finished rock bottom of the Currie Cup qualification log and with them back at the bottom early in the First Division they will be very motivated to get a win against Border.

“This is going to be a very tough match,” admitted Fana.

“The Welwitschias have targeted this game as one that they can win, so they will be coming very hard at us from the first whistle.

“What we have is an in-form team here scoring lots of tries. Yes, they went down against the Leopards and SWD, but they are attacking very well and scoring a lot of points so our defence has to match them.”

The Bulldogs’ last meeting against the visitors was early in July in Namibia and ended in a thumping victory for the former. However, at halftime of that game they only held a slender lead before powering away in the second period.

The Bulldogs will need to make sure they don’t make the same mistakes and are not complacent as they might just be upset by them.

“What happened in the last game against them is the past now. It is a whole new ball game and we have to be ready,” said Fana. “We cannot be complacent. We have to go out there and get the win first and then worry about bonus points after we have made sure of the result.”

The Bulldogs will need to get the win and a bonus point if they want to challenge for a top four finish and to make it into the semifinals, so a big confidence boosting result will go a long way to getting them there.

The match kicks off at 7pm tomorrow night.