Ken Borland

There is no doubt the Bulls players and management crave the sort of pedigree and success in European rugby that Leinster enjoy, and coach Jake White is hoping upsetting the Irish giants in their United Rugby Championship semi-final in Dublin on Friday is the first step on that path.

Leinster have won the European Champions Cup four times, second only to Toulouse (5), and the Pro14 competition (the URC’s predecessor) eight times including the last four tournaments in a row. They also topped the final URC log by six points.

But while it’s obvious how much White respects Leinster, it’s also one of the great joys of sport that hot favourites are sometimes upset by the underdogs in knockout matches. It’s those games the fans live for, and the former World Cup winning coach is hoping Friday night is one of those days for the Bulls.

“Leinster are an incredible team, to put it in perspective, Sean Cronin, their reserve hooker, has played 206 games for them and Jonny Sexton has played 183. Together they have probably played more matches than our entire squad and they are both on the bench.

“We all want to become like Leinster in terms of our structures and we have massive respect for them. Who else has players like Cronin, Sexton, Cian Healy and Ciaran Frawley on the bench?

“Leinster used 60 players in this season’s URC, which is 16 more than us. Those learnings mean you will be so much better next year and after that. For us it’s about building a team over the next couple of years so we can be one of the strongest clubs in world rugby.

“But people follow sport because there’s always a chance, the players believe they can do it and I want them to give it a real crack. We’ve got confidence that on our day we can win,” White said.

For the upset to happen though, it’s going to be crucial for the Bulls to absorb the early blows Leinster, at their formidable RDS Arena, are going to rain down on them.

“We have to start well, Leinster score most of their points in the first 25 minutes,” White said. “It’s very difficult to play catch-up against them, especially at their home ground.

“La Rochelle stayed in the game well in the Champions Cup final a fortnight ago, but the last time we were here, we looked again and we were 15 points down.

“But it will be different this time because we won’t be overawed, we are more controlled now and we have more settled combinations.”

Having bished-and-bashed their way into the last four, there is no pressure on the Bulls, and whatever they get out of Friday night’s game will be a bonus.

“I think we have surpassed everything we were meant to do already,” White said after naming an unchanged starting XV on Thursday. “Now we see if we can live with the best standard of European clubs.”

Bulls: Canan Moodie, David Kriel, Cornal Hendricks, Harold Vorster, Madosh Tambwe, Chris Smith, Zak Burger; Elrigh Louw, Arno Botha, Marcell Coetzee, Ruan Nortje, Walt Steenkamp, Mornay Smith, Johan Grobbelaar, Gerhard Steenekamp. Replacements -Bismarck du Plessis, Simphiwe Matanzima, Robert Hunt, Janko Swanepoel, WJ Steenkamp; Embrose Papier, Morne Steyn, Kurt-Lee Arendse.

Last September when the Bulls left Pretoria, their families and home comforts, and their support structures to head for Dublin and take on European powerhouses Leinster in their opening United Rugby Championship match it was with trepidation as they stepped into a daunting unknown.

Now when they head once more to the Irish capital for their semi-final against the same team on Friday night, they know more about the challenges they face but also about themselves and how much they have grown in the last eight-and-a-half months.

Coach Jake White said whether or not his underdogs manage to beat the tournament favourites, the game will be a valuable measurement of just how far the team have come and how much further they still have to go.

“We will see how good we are on Friday night, whether we have grown or not,” White said after their thrilling quarterfinal win over the Sharks. “I like to think that we are a better side.

“But it’s a chance to measure ourselves against an international-strength side, a team that has dominated Europe. You want to end a tournament playing your best rugby.

“Leinster were in rampant form in their quarterfinal after their Champions Cup disappointment last week. Friday night is a chance for the players to measure themselves against international players.

“This group has only been together for two years and we had two 19-year-olds in our 23-man squad. They are playing beyond their ages and their time together as a group,” White said.

Leinster stated their determination to win the inaugural URC, having won the last four editions of the Pro14 that preceded it, with chilling efficiency at the weekend as they destroyed Glasgow Warriors 76-14.

They will go into Friday night’s semi-final with confidence at a high, physically fresh and with home advantage. The Bulls will arrive in Dublin with a short week and bodies still battered from their gruelling tussle with the Sharks and the short turnaround thereafter.

In terms of experience, Leinster will go into the game with a massive advantage in terms of Test caps.

And White has stressed the most important part of their challenge on Friday night will be to start well, to not allow Leinster to play with the amount of possession they gifted the Sharks in the opening 10 minutes.

“Leinster’s front row probably has more international caps than our entire team, but the one thing I did see in La Rochelle’s Champions Cup final win was that you’ve got to hold them in the first half,” White said.

“You’ve got to keep them to a reasonable score at halftime. Leinster score the most points of all URC teams in the first 20 minutes of games. But in that final they took one or two bad options.

“So they are beatable but we have to not let them start well. You cannot play catch-up against a very good team like that, and if we give Leinster the ball for the first 10 minutes then they will not miss out on those opportunities,” White said.

There’s a lot to think about for the young players at Loftus Versfeld these days: Trying to win the United Rugby Championship and the Currie Cup at the same time, and then next year having the European Champions Cup as another add-on to their plate.

And for an exciting prospect like loose forward Muller Uys, who also played club rugby for Tuks last weekend, there is the added pressure of trying to nail down a place in the Bulls URC squad.

The 23-year-old Uys will no doubt pack down at the back of the scrum for the Bulls on Friday night in their Currie Cup match against the Pumas, but with Cyle Brink injuring his knee against the Ospreys last weekend, there is likely to be a place in the match-day 23 for the following weekend’s quarterfinal against the Sharks.

Uys credits the set-up at Loftus for providing both clarity and motivation for all their players.

“When I get the chance, it’s my responsibility to show I am good enough to play URC,” Uys said on Tuesday. “I need to take ownership and show what I’m worth. There’s a clear plan and the players understand.

“In terms of training with the two squads, they make it easy for us to go from Currie Cup to URC, to slot into either side. The way we prepare, it’s 100% about the long-term and that will help a lot for next year.

“My career took a bit of a different turn with injury, but I must just take it day-by-day and keep learning. I must not think I’m too old or too good to learn. In a way I’ve started afresh.

“I played club rugby for Tuks last week, it was a nice way to get game-time, keep the skills sharp. It’s an opportunity to grow and learn because maybe there are things you haven’t seen there,” Uys said.

The Bulls Currie Cup side showed their ability when they totally dominated a URC-strength Lions team in their first half of their previous Currie Cup game, before sadly going off the boil in the second half. But the 43-37 win has nevertheless given them a timely confidence boost going into the last couple of rounds.

“We’ll carry a lot of confidence from that game because the Lions had a quality side and we manned up and really went well in the first half. There’s a lot of responsibility now for us to back up that performance,” Uys said.

“We matched up physically and did quite well against the Lions, we just had to manage the game better in the final 40 minutes, both with the ball and without ball-in-hand. The Pumas will not be much different to be honest,” assistant coach Hayden Groepes said.

When SA Rugby bravely shifted away from their long-standing relationship with Sanzaar and SuperRugby and decided to throw in their lot with European club competition, there was plenty of uncertainty as to just how well the move would pan out.

Now, with the United Rugby Championship in its final weekend of round-robin action and three South African sides in the quarterfinals already, one can only say it has been a great success.

It’s been a tremendous journey for the Sharks, Stormers and Bulls, and even the Lions have shown their worth in being way more competitive than many expected. The tentative first steps into the URC were made when the country was still in the grips of Covid restrictions, the franchises were without their Springboks and they had to start their campaigns in Europe in the northern hemisphere autumn.

It was a chastening introduction and there were understandable fears over whether SA Rugby had made the right decision. Wiser heads pointed to the circumstances above and pleaded patience.

And how richly that patience has been rewarded with the four South African teams tenaciously dominating the second half of the competition, making their home stadiums fortresses and producing some thrilling rugby in the process.

Of all the sports in South Africa, rugby has probably borne the brunt of Covid, given how they were the code which was most accustomed to having big crowds in stadiums.

With at least one URC home quarterfinal guaranteed, wouldn’t it be marvellous for that team/s to have the backing of a properly sold-out stadium?

SA Rugby have been patience personified when it comes to working with government and their time-lines in terms of Covid protocols. But having seen the British and Irish Lions tour almost ruined last year, one totally understands their frustration at how slowly the wheels are now turning to get spectators fully back into stadiums.

If only Minister of Sports, Arts and Culture Nathi Mthethwa was as preoccupied with something that really will contribute to the economy, rather than that stupid monumental flag of his.

You always see politicians front and centre, ensuring they are in the limelight, when our sports teams enjoy global success. They piggyback so hard on the triumphs that you cannot help but wonder whether they believe they played an integral part in achieving the result.

The truth, of course, is that politicians do very little for sport in this country. You only need to look at facilities, especially at grassroots level, to see that. And yet they bask in the nation-building and social cohesion that sporting success brings, as if they had a key role in ensuring those outcomes. It is just another example of the parasitic tendencies of our politicians.

But even without capacity crowds in South Africa just yet, one feels the URC will go from strength-to-strength.

On the last weekend of round-robin play, defending champions Leinster are guaranteed to finish first on the log, but little else is certain. A team like the Bulls, depending on the results, could either finish second or seventh in the final standings.

And playing in the European Champions Cup next season will only heighten the hype here in South Africa.

Given the steady flow of South Africans to those teams, there has always been great interest in the English and French clubs and now those powerhouses will be coming to these shores as well.

SA Rugby are sure to see the vindication of their brave move in the years to come, as aligning with the major economies of the rugby world will bring an even greater profile to South African rugby.