Ken Borland

Facing a tough away match at Scotstoun, Bulls coach Jake White does not know whether the wind will howl or not, but one thing that is within his control is team selection and he revealed on Friday that he will not risk flyhalf Johan Goosen against Glasgow Warriors on their artificial pitch.

Goosen, who will probably be on the Springboks’ end-of-year tour, has started just one game at flyhalf since rupturing his knee three games into last season on the artificial pitch in Cardiff. But even though the 30-year-old needs game time and White has also been robbed of backline stars Canan Moodie and Sbu Nkosi due to injury, Goosen will not feature for the Bulls in their United Rugby Championship match against Glasgow Warriors on Saturday night.

“I’m not going to risk Johan on a 4G pitch. They don’t play any Test rugby on those pitches for a reason, it’s because more players get injured on that surface,” White stated on Friday.

“He has just come back from 11 months out after an horrific injury on that sort of pitch. I took the decision myself, I did not ask him. If you look at the history of those 4G pitches, there have been a lot of injuries and I don’t want to take the risk.

“I have confidence in Chris Smith and Morne Steyn, they have done exceptionally well the times we have called on them,” White said.

While there is expected to be a low chance of rain in Glasgow on Saturday night, and just a gentle breeze, White did say he was concerned about the wind strengthening.

“Scotstoun can be very windy, which can be a massive factor in the way we want to play, sometimes it makes it very difficult to play too much rugby,” White said.

“We will have to see how the weather is, it is very influential here, and we might have to kick more. That’s also a skill and creating pressure points is a part of attack too.

“Rain will not be so much of a problem, but a massive amount of wind will be, whether you’re playing against it or with it. It’s a very open stadium and our stadiums at home are closed in.

“If you’re against the wind at the back end of the match and chasing the game, then it becomes very difficult. We also have to learn to use the wind when it is in our favour,” White said.

Added to the change in conditions from back in Pretoria, White pointed out that Glasgow Warriors are always a formidable challenge at home.

“They only lost once at home last year and their one game at home this season they have won convincingly. Coach Franco Smith has lots of experience and he has done well with the Free State Cheetahs and Italy.

“Plus Glasgow have a couple of injured players coming back, which is going to make their forward pack more staunch. Last week was obviously a rebound result for them, and I have no doubt they will want another,” White said.

Bulls: Kurt-Lee Arendse, Cornal Hendricks, Lionel Mapoe, David Kriel, Stedman Gans, Chris Smith, Zak Burger, Elrigh Louw, Marco Van Staden, Marcell Coetzee (capt), Ruan Nortjé, Walt Steenkamp, Francois Klopper, Jan-Hendrik Wessels, Gerhard Steenekamp. Bench – Bismarck du Plessis, Simphiwe Matanzima, Mornay Smith, Janko Swanepoel, Reinhardt Ludwig, Embrose Papier, Morné Steyn, Wandisile Simelane.

Ryan Rickelton is collecting centuries these days like the rich and famous buying accessories, and Wednesday’s hundred to lead the Central Gauteng Lions to victory over the North-West Dragons at the Wanderers was arguably the most dazzling of the lot.

Rickelton blazed 110 off 75 balls, a great innings in terms of quality, beautiful strokeplay and the class of a different level that oozed from each of his 12 fours and four sixes.

After a morning that called for flippers and masks rather than cricket bats and leather balls, play at the Wanderers was delayed from the scheduled 1pm start to 3.45pm and the CSA One-Day Cup match was reduced to 31 overs a side.

Considering the weather, North-West won the toss and sent the Lions in to bat, but openers Josh Richards and Rickelton were superb in getting on top of the bowlers pretty much from the outset.

They cruised to fifty at a run-a-ball and their hundred stand came off just 80 deliveries. Richards was also classy and easy on the eye as he scored 44 off 51 balls before being caught on the boundary off left-arm spinner Senuran Muthusamy.

That ended the first-wicket stand on 132, off just 109 balls, but Reeza Hendricks then came in and ensured there was no loss of momentum with a brisk 37 off 24 deliveries.

Rickelton went to his century, his fourth in six innings to go with a 99 in his previous visit to the crease, off just 71 balls. It was a ferocious pace, but the left-hander barely seemed to be breaking a sweat and was never anything less than elegant.

It eventually took an outstanding catch by Dwaine Pretorius, running along the long-on boundary and then diving, to dismiss Rickelton. The bowler was Eldred Hawken, the best of the Dragons attack and a former Lions player, who married excellent control with some handy variations to finish with two for 31 in his seven overs, which included two maidens.

The Lions were then 201 for two in the 25th over and would have been targeting beyond 270.

But North-West, led by Hawken, did fight back with the ball, restricting the Lions to 260 for five. Evan Jones made the other significant contribution with 29 not out off 21 balls.

Even that was way too much of an ask for the North-West batting line-up though as they were bundled out for just 127 in 22.1 overs.

Sisanda Magala, almost as prolific a matchwinner as Rickelton, was the destroyer-in-chief with outstanding figures of five for 31 in five overs. One wonders how much more they need to do to become Proteas regulars.

Magala delivered the opening wicket when he deceived the dangerous Wesley Marshall (9) and had him caught at mid-off.

Lesego Senokwane (41) and Grant Mokoena (16) then stabilised with a second-wicket stand of 53, but they scored at no better than a run-a-ball, needing to provide more acceleration if they were to keep up with the ever-ballooning asking rate.

Wiaan Mulder (6-1-39-1) and Malusi Siboto (4-0-17-2) did tidy jobs in the middle overs, as the Dragons began to lose regular wickets under the pressure.

Spinner Bjorn Fortuin (3.1-0-12-2) removed the last bit of resistance in dismissing Chris Britz (28), and Magala then ran through the tail as North-West lost their last seven wickets for 22 runs in a handful of overs.

As tight and disciplined as the Lions bowling was, they were also outstanding in the field, with Mitchell van Buuren and Richards both taking magnificent catches.

Victory by 133 runs brought with it a bonus point, allowing the Lions to overtake North-West and move into second place on the log, with a couple of games in hand.

Coach Wandile Gwavu could not have asked for much more than the superbly-polished all-round display his team produced.

Irish powerhouses Leinster, especially at home, thrive on quick ball and phase-after-phase of ball-in-hand attack, but the Sharks will be looking to take that away from them in their United Rugby Championship clash in Dublin on Saturday night.

James Venter and Dylan Richardson, both traditionally openside flanks, will continue to play in tandem in a mobile loose trio that sees Springbok Sikhumbuzo Notshe return as starting eighthman and the hardworking Phepsi Buthelezi on the bench.

And the more Leinster recycle the ball through rucks, the more they will bring Venter and Richardson, both expert ball-stealers, into play.

“We know that Leinster rely on lightning-quick ball at the breakdown and we need to slow that down,” Sharks coach Sean Everitt said on Friday. “But they do concede turnovers, and if we defend well then that could be a source of attacking possession for us.

“Leinster have an all-round game, a good kicking game forces you to play in the wrong areas and then their attack is really dangerous, they enjoy keeping ball-in-hand.

“But hopefully we can wear them down, get on top at the breakdowns and then get behind them. The amount of work that Dylan and James gets through stands us in good stead.

“Dylan is an all-round loose forward, he can play on the blindside too because he is physical, his carries are very good and he gets a lot of them. He’s good on the ground too,” Everitt said.

The Sharks have won both of their matches on tour thus far, but it’s not as if they have peacefully gone about securing that unbeaten record. They had to withstand a fierce second-half comeback from Zebre in Parma, eventually holding on 42-37, and last weekend they mounted the last-ditch effort, snatching a 20-19 win over the Dragons in Newport.

Everitt knows how steep the challenge is away to Leinster and he knows they need their all-round game to click.

“It’s a massive game for us to see where we’re at because we’re going to have a number of games without our Springboks. We’re under no false illusions, but teams have beaten Leinster and we beat them in Durban last season.

“We have to improve the areas that have let us down the last two weeks. Our attack was brilliant in the first game, but our defence let us down in the second half. Last weekend our defence was good but the attack was poor.

“So we need to get consistency in both of those areas. It’s going to be a great challenge because Leinster weren’t the top side in Europe for five years for nothing,” Everitt said.

Sharks team – Aphelele Fassi, Werner Kok, Rohan Janse van Rensburg, Ben Tapuai, Thaakir Abrahams, Boeta Chamberlain, Grant Williams, Sikhumbuzo Notshe, Dylan Richardson, James Venter, Hyron Andrews, Justin Basson, Thomas du Toit (c), Kerron van Vuuren, Ntuthuko Mchunu. Bench: Dan Jooste, Dian Bleuler, Carlu Sadie, Reniel Hugo, Phepsi Buthelezi, Cameron Wright, Nevaldo Fleurs, Marnus Potgieter.

Kickoff – 6.05pm.

Judging by some safety studies coming out of the UK, playing rugby is seemingly as dangerous as being a passenger in a minibus taxi that is behind schedule after the driver popped into the local shebeen.

There is no denying the alarming figures these studies are revealing in terms of brain injuries since the game went professional, and WorldRugby has been forced into making changes to the law in order to avoid the sort of lawsuits that have cost American Football hundreds of millions of dollars in settlements.

The most obvious of these changes has been the zero-tolerance approach to contact to the head. Unfortunately, in a contact game such as rugby and the highly-fluid tackle zone that features hundreds of kilograms of bone and flesh crashing into, or trying to avoid, each other, accidents are inevitable.

As former Springbok captain John Smit said this week: “You’re never going to make a contact sport 100% safe, there will always be an element of rIsk. And I have never met anyone who was forced to play rugby. I picked up the ball and ran into three guys out of my free will and I understood the risks.

“My shoulder is a mess now, I can’t turn my neck because of the spinal fusion I’ve had, but I’ve had more injuries from cycling! If I was given the choice now, I would still pick up the rugby ball like I did 30 years ago,” Smit said.

An unwanted side-effect of the law changes is that it has made it very taxing to watch rugby these days.

The constant TMO interventions, looking for the slightest head contact, coupled with the rank amateur standard of officiating we see far too often lately, leaves spectators and viewers angry, frustrated and often just plain bored.

I’m not arguing that TMOs should be done away with, they still have a vital role to play in ensuring crucial decisions are made correctly and in stamping out foul play, but their emphasis needs to shift.

So much time was wasted last weekend replaying a totally accidental head-to-head contact involving Bulls flyhalf Johan Goosen, which could easily have been a red card, ruining the game, given how some officials interpret these things.

But when there is obvious dangerous play, sometimes officialdom seems too lenient in dealing with it. Bundee Aki’s cleanout of Seabelo Senatla was clearly dangerous, putting the Stormers wing out of action for months. The Connacht centre has been given an eight-game ban, which seems about right. But it was only that much because of his previous record and the fact he angrily remonstrated with the referee after he was red-carded. The injury to the referee’s pride was obviously much more serious than Senatla’s in the view of the disciplinary tribunal.

And then there’s Darcy Swain, the Wallabies lock, who was only banned for six weeks for the assault on All Blacks centre Quinn Tupaea at a ruck, which must rank as one of the filthiest acts I’ve ever seen on a rugby field. Swain deliberately targeted the trapped leg of Tupaea, twisting it and destroying the New Zealander’s knee ligaments.

Tupaea will be out of action for nine months and is likely to miss the World Cup next year.

It is frustrating enough that there are so many stoppages in a game of rugby these days, with what is meant to be a 40-minute half almost always actually taking closer to an hour to finish, but then the officials so often get the decisions wrong anyway. Now there are also official water breaks scattered through the contest.

Fans are definitely losing interest.

The match between the Bulls and Connacht last weekend at Loftus Versfeld became exciting, on the scoreboard at least, in the second half. But in the main grandstand below the media centre, spectators passed their time cheering and encouraging a trio of spectators who were building a beer snake out of empty cups, making it tall enough to reach the tier above them.

Apparently it was a similar story the weekend before in the Springboks’ crucial Test against Argentina at Kings Park – spectators spent much of the time building paper planes and throwing them around.

Yes, WorldRugby needs to pass laws that make the game safer, but they also need to ensure their product is watchable.