Bulls mentor Mitchell admits ‘stupidity’ cost his team dearly

THE Bulls will look back to their first two matches on tour against the Reds and Chiefs and have nobody to blame besides themselves.

The errors of their ways was again epitomised by how they again let go of a healthy lead to succumb 41-28 to the Chiefs in Hamilton yesterday.

A week before in Brisbane and well in control of proceedings, the Bulls blew away a 14-3 lead to eventually lose 20-14 to the Reds.

In this game, the Bulls had led 21-7 midway through the first half but they allowed the Chiefs to run in five tries in 44 minutes to emerge victorious.

The manner in which the Bulls ran out of steam and vied off their game again came back to haunt them in Hamilton in the very same way it had happened in Brisbane.

The Bulls attack was well marshalled by Springbok flyhalf Handre Pollard along with Jesse Kriel, who getting back into form, while fullback Warrick Gelant once again proved why he by far the best number 15 in the country.

Pollard was a general with ball in hand and often made timely decisions on when to pass and run, while Kriel was the perfect link man between the inside and outside backs with his defence-splitting runs leading to two of the Bulls’ four tries.

Gelant was a handful from the back and if it was not him turning the Chiefs defence inside out with his fleet-footed sidesteps then he was running and creating space and showed bravery in plucking the ball out of the air and taking on some of the Chiefs big men upfront.

The Bulls pack must also come in for some commendation as their driving maul created endless problems for the Chiefs and had deserved, at least, to have a one man advantage for the number of times the New Zealanders infringed at the weight and might of the visitors’ lineout drives.

Over and above that the likes of props Pierre Schoeman and Trevor Nyakane put in a lot of hard work in getting over the advantage line and giving their team much needed inertia while Nyakane put in some massive hits in stopping the advancing Chiefs backs.

But in the end, it was came down to a handful of moments including the decision of referee Shuhei Kubo not to award them what seemed a legitimate try by replacement scrumhalf Embrose Papier that ultimately swung the game in favour of the home side.

With the Bulls just two points ahead and in the 58th minute, Gelant went on one of his dangerous runs slicing with ease through the host’s defensive line before passing the ball to Papier who cantered to score under the poles.

But Kubo referred the build- up to the try- citing obstruction by Lood de Jager on Brodie Retallick to TV official Shane McDermott who in turn agreed with Kubo that Retallick had been impeded even though it was clear the All Black lock had run into his Springbok counterpart and Gelant had already glided past him.

“I really enjoyed our mentality and I thought we had an outstanding first half. And the second half was punctuated by the big moment on that obstruction try. When you go back to the footage Lood looked like he didn’t even change his line. So that was a huge moment because we could have been back to 14 points ahead,” said Bulls coach John Mitchell afterwards.

Mitchell also lamented his team’s inability to finish off the Chiefs on three occasions within try-scoring range and the obvious yellow card to replacement prop Conraad van Vuuren which should have been a red card for a late and swinging arm tackle on Damian McKenzie.

Mitchell strongly believes that had his team performed as well in the second half as they did in the first, then they would have earned a rare victory in New Zealand.

“And there was one area where we got a bit untidy was in the attacking 22m where we were impatient and got no conversion out of the three times that we were in there in the second half. And the yellow was from stupidity which you can’t afford to do at this level.

“Get those things together then you can finish off a match in New Zealand, because they are not easy to win,” Mitchell said.