Bulls not taking the Pumas lightly
HUMAN: BULLS WILL HAVE TO MATCH PUMAS UP FRONT
Home side are still hurting from the 51-15 hiding last season.
The Blue Bulls will be treating their Currie Cup match against the Pumas at Loftus Versfeld tonight as a quarterfinal and their first priority will be to match their grizzled opponents up front, according to coach Pote Human.
If the Blue Bulls can record a bonus point win and deny the Pumas any points, then Human and his side will be assured of a place in the semifinals. But it certainly won’t be easy and the coach was quick to bring up the 51-15 thrashing the Pretoria side received the last time they played the Mpumalanga team in the Currie Cup, last year in Nelspruit.
“The Pumas are a good team and we have a lot of respect for them, we took 50 from them last year in Nelspruit. They are very physical, it all starts with their forwards and their mauls and scrums. We must be sharp for the full 80 minutes, especially the 10 minutes before half-time. You can’t afford any soft moments against the Pumas.
“In our last game at Loftus, we weren’t very good against the Lions, so now we must win to be in the semifinals. We’re treating it as a quarterfinal because if they beat us then it’s going to be very difficult to make the semis,” Human said.
The Blue Bulls made crucial, soft errors in discipline and defence in the middle of last weekend’s game against Griquas, but they also made inroads on attack to show just how dangerous they can be when fully focused, scoring seven tries.
“Those 10 minutes before and after halftime are vital, last weekend we conceded five penalties in a row and two yellow cards in that period. That meant we had to fight hard to get back from there,” Human pointed out.
“One of the positives we take from last weekend is that we saw that if we keep the ball then we can score lots of points. We just need to sort out our defence, but we can see the rewards from playing,” captain Hanro Liebenberg added.