Human skills pleases Bulls’ new coach
A FEW skilful touches in their warm-up match against the Stormers left Bulls coach Pote Human optimistic about his team’s progress ahead of the start of the Super Rugby campaign.
The Bulls at times made too many fifty-fifty passes, which led to unforced errors in their 33-28 defeat to the Stormers in Sunday’s Super Hero-themed match in Cape Town.
Most of the mistakes happened in the first half with the team recovering well to take the lead shortly after the half-time break before a late try resulted in a Stormers victory.
“The skills are there and I must compliment Chris Rossouw (backline and attack coach) coming in and working really hard with the guys,” Human said after the match.
“It is exciting times and especially with the way we want to play, everybody knows the old style of play at the Bulls. We want to play expansive rugby and I think we are on the right path.”
Human, who was named as John Mitchell’s replacement as Super Rugby mentor in December, said he retained some of the former All Blacks coach’s playbook while making a few adjustments.
“He (Mitchell) lay the foundation and all the players are excited about the season and now it is time to produce, it showed again today,” Human said.
“He laid the foundation and we’ll tweak here and with Chris coming in, I am very happy.”
Bulls captain Lood de Jager echoed Human’s sentiments highlighting that they still had this weekend’s warmup match against the Sharks in Durban to make further tweaks before their Super Rugby opener against the Stormers at Loftus Versfeld on February 16.
“We are focusing on the processes at the moment, there is a bigger picture, so for us, it was just about executing our plays,” De Jager said.
pretty great. The way everyone carries themselves and the work ethic at provincial level already was eye opening,” said Luus. “You learn a lot, you play against the best in the world; Meg Lanning and Ellyse Perry, and coming from that you get so much more experience.
“I had a chat with our youngsters and said ‘we are going to change, we are going to work extra hard, this is the standard we need to set.’ There’s not just training when you have to, you have to do extra, you have to walk the extra mile to be the best in the world.”
SA play the final T20 match of the series against Sri Lanka at Centurion tomorrow. Thereafter they face the Sri Lankans in three ODIs which form part of the ICC Women’s Championship. Points earned there – for each match – will count towards automatic qualification for the 2021 World Cup.