Bulls look to the line-outs

The Stormers showed last weekend just how effective a powerful scrum is against the Glasgow Warriors, but Bulls coach Jake White also wants to use the lineout to attack the Scottish play-off contenders in their United Rugby Championship match at Loftus Versfeld tonight.

The Glasgow scrum struggled to take the heat put on them by Frans Malherbe and Steven Kitshoff in Cape Town, but White said yesterday that the Bulls don’t have the luxury of Springbok props, so they will be looking to the lineout to also put the Warriors under pressure.

The visitors’ lineout is, however, led by the lighthouse-like figure of veteran lock Richie Gray, who has played 67 Tests for Scotland.

“We don’t have the luxury of a great scrum with incumbent Test props, but we need to find a way to use it as an attacking platform, be clever with it and not just use it to bail us out and get a penalty,” White said.

“It’s a significant difference between how rugby is played locally and overseas, where the scrum is used as an attacking platform, compared to being used here as a way to get a penalty and territory.

“But the lineout can also be used as a different form of attack, like the Canterbury Crusaders or Leicester Tigers do – you can maul, go off the top, come round the front or the back, or use overthrows,” White said.

While the selection of a counter-attacker like Canan Moodie to replace the injured Kurt-Lee Arendse at fullback shows that the Bulls will still want to give the ball plenty of air, especially if Glasgow – who like to kick for territory – are inaccurate with the boot, White said he had chosen Morne Steyn (below) as his starting flyhalf for a specific reason he did not want to divulge.

Perhaps Steyn’s ability to mail monster kicks deep into opposition territory and then putting the Warriors lineout under pressure is the reason.