Execution key for Blue Bulls

Ken Borland

Blue Bulls coach Nollis Marais is having a hard time measuring how far his side has come in changing to a new style simply because of their lack of execution, as he made just a couple of changes to the starting line-up for the vital Currie Cup clash with neighbours the Golden Lions at Loftus Versfeld tomorrow.

The Bulls once again came up just short against the Sharks last weekend and Marais has made just one rotational switch to that team, with Pierre Schoeman (above) starting at loosehead prop instead of Lizo Gqoboka, who drops out of the match-day squad because of the ridiculous rule that teams can only have 22 players.

In an injury-enforced change, Hanro Liebenberg replaces Jannes Kirsten and will play at eighthman, with captain Arno Botha shifting to blindside flank.

“We had a lot of ball-carries and the Sharks made twice as many tackles on us, so we just need to be better with our conversion rate, then we would have won. Unfortunately we’ve now lost two away games and it’s because of our errors.

“It’s definitely frustrating, in the first 50 minutes against Western Province in our first game, everything worked well, but we’ve battled to get the same continuity since then.

‘‘But it’s easy to talk a good game, we need to go out and prove it.’’ said Marais.