Ken Borland

Lock Jason Jenkins admitted on Monday that the Bulls pack were slow to lay the sort of forward platform that would have made the match against Griquas in Pretoria at the weekend a much easier outing, with the home side eventually having to toil to just edge the spoils 30-23.

The Bulls backline looked dangerous in the first half, but the failure to ‘build an innings’ in the forward exchanges meant Griquas always had enough defenders on their feet to deal with the threat and they also made life very difficult for the hosts in the breakdowns.

“It wasn’t a great performance and we were lucky to get the win, although it’s better to be able to learn from a win than to have to learn from a defeat. Credit to Griquas, who made it really hard for us, it’s not that we underestimated them, we knew they were going to come hard, the Bulls lost to them in the Currie Cup last year and we knew they would be confident.

“Our physicality was up there but coach Jake [Whiite] said at halftime that we had to be more physical and direct, we had to hit their one-off runners back, win that battle first before we could start going wide. We were a bit slow to sort that out first and our attacking breakdown in the first half was very poor because the cleaners were watching the carriers and coming in too late,” Jenkins said on Monday.

While Jenkins has always been well-suited to the mundane hard graft of a number four lock, he wants to develop into a more potent ball-carrier and there were signs of that against Griquas, especially when he burst through the line to set up fellow lock Ruan Nortje for a try.

Jenkins is on loan with the Bulls until November 8, when he has to return to Toyota Verblitz, White’s former club in Japan. The 24-year-old said playing in the Japanese Top League has helped him develop more gas, which he will need to put to good use on Friday night as the Bulls visit a Free State Cheetahs side that loves to play fast-paced, expansive rugby. Jenkins – and the rest of the Bulls tight five – will need to show mobility in order to preserve the defensive line and defuse the Cheetahs attack.

“Rugby in Japan is not as bad as it was five or six years ago, they have really picked up their structures and it’s now a world-class competition. It’s not as physical, but it’s quicker and I’ve had to adapt to moving around the park a lot more.

“The Cheetahs also like to run the ball and expose teams out wide, but we will take them on up front, try and force them to play infield more, force them to play into our hands a bit more. We need to put them under pressure up front, like we should have done early on against Griquas,” Jenkins said.