Bulls wary of Glasgow Warriors
SA side can book playoff spot with one win in last two games
The Blue Bulls will look to secure a place in the playoffs of the United Rugby Championship (URC) with a good result when they take on Glasgow Warriors at Loftus Versfeld on Friday at 7pm.
Jake White’s charges are now in eighth place, the last of the playoff spots. They have 48 points and will need one victory in their last two remaining games of the season to join the Stormers and Sharks in the last eight of the URC.
Even though the Bulls divide opinions in terms of their style of rugby, they have been one of the best-performing sides in the tournament. The Pretoria outfit proved their brilliance last weekend with an impressive 49-26 win over Benneton and they will look to build on the commanding victory against the Warriors.
The Warriors began their tour to SA on the wrong foot by losing to the Stormers. Bulls captain Marcell Coetzee is expecting a tough encounter against the Scottish province and is using their 32-7 loss to the Stormers as a blueprint.
“The past few games have basically been must-win games for us. The guys know the importance of the next few games. We are in a position where we need to fight, and the guys have embraced that,” said Coetzee to the Bulls media team.
“This weekend will be no different. We face a quality Glasgow Warriors side. This past weekend the Stormers played very well against them, but Glasgow Warriors were also very dangerous in some areas.”
“What we learnt is how patient the Stormers were, and they managed to break them [Glasgow Warriors] down no matter what they threw at them.
“It goes to show that they were a team that was well-prepared, and they knew that if they stuck to their systems, they would get the upper hand,” he said.
Meanwhile, the Glasgow Warriors are in sixth place with 50 points. They know that they are not safe in terms of a playoff spot. They will go to Pretoria hoping to add to their points tally before going back to Scotland.
“I’m conscious we’ve got two games we need to get points from. There’s still a lot of belief in what we can do,” said Glasgow Warriors loose forward Ryan Wilson to the Scottish press.
“If we take parts of that last game and bring it into this one we’ll do OK and we’d back ourselves in the last game against Edinburgh. We’ll get the points we need. We just have to make sure we stay focused and don’t get too far ahead of ourselves and put unnecessary pressure on ourselves when it’s not needed.”