Ken Borland

It’s been awhile since Cornal Hendricks played in midfield for the Bulls but the Springbok will be back there on Saturday night when the Currie Cup champions take on the Cardiff Blues in their United Rugby Championship match at the Arms Park.

The 33-year-old Hendricks was a revelation when coach Jake White moved him from the wing to centre last year upon his arrival at Loftus Versfeld, but he has not played in midfield since the final round-robin game of the Currie Cup, against the Free State Cheetahs on August 28.

And, in a new-look backline that White announced on Friday, Hendricks will be playing outside centre and not in the No.12 jersey where he has previously starred for the Bulls. It’s all to do with the fact that the Bulls are playing for the first time on a 4G pitch, which is a mixture of grass and synthetic turf, and pace will be of the essence.

“The most important thing is how we adapt to the different challenge of the pitch, the pace of the game is going to be very quick, it will challenge both our defence and attack,” White said on Friday.

“I really wanted to play Stedman Gans at 13 with Cornal at 12, but Stedman has a tight hamstring and we couldn’t risk it. That didn’t work out, but fortunately Kurt-Lee Arendse is ready to come back on the wing.

“If Stedman had been fit we could have had almost a Sevens backline with their wonderful feet and stepping. Cornal actually trained a lot at inside centre this week, but Harold Vorster is obviously very accomplished there.

“It’s going to be exciting to see how this backline goes on a nice, hard surface. The surface is so even that you can go flat out and push the tempo big time. Teams can use the pace to outwork teams instead of going through them,” White said.

The veteran coach is delighted to be back at the Cardiff Arms Park and has relished showing his players, some of them on their first British tour, the aluminium plaques, statues and other rugby memorabilia around the Welsh capital. White is expecting a passionate home crowd to make their life even more difficult on Friday night.

“They have smaller crowds over here, but they make the noise of a massive crowd. Plus they have been kept out of watching rugby, so it is still relatively new for them to come and watch games again.

“So there’s going to be a helluva atmosphere, they love rugby in Wales, this is real rugby country. We see the plaques and pictures of rugby legends in the shops, and it’s a wonderful experience for the juniors to be here. And it’s nice for me to show them all the rugby history,” White said.

Bulls team:David Kriel, Madosh Tambwe, Cornal Hendricks, Harold Vorster, Kurt-Lee Arendse, Johan Goosen, Embrose Papier; Elrigh Louw, Jacques du Plessis, Marcell Coetzee (CAPT), Ruan Nortje, Janko Swanepoel, Jacques van Rooyen, Bismarck du Plessis, Simphiwe Matanzima. Bench – Jan-Hendrik Wessels, Lizo Gqoboka, Robert Hunt, Walt Steenkamp, Arno Botha, Keagan Johannes, Chris Smith, Lionel Mapoe.

Lizo Gqoboka’s face is an ever-smiling one, but if one had to offer the Bulls prop a penny for his thoughts after their loss to Connacht last weekend, he would have told you about his bitter disappointment, even though he scored a try and put in a stout individual performance.

“It was a tough one. I was happy about the try, but we lost the game so actually I was not happy. The team comes first and I can never be happy when we lose,” Gqoboka said this week as the Bulls try to rectify the mistakes they made in their 34-7 loss to Connacht ahead of their United Rugby Championship match against the Cardiff Blues on Saturday night.

“There are a couple of things we need to adjust to, mostly the conditions and the tempo. These European sides play differently and they are accurate in their execution.”

“We need to adjust and learn really quickly how to counter that tempo. But the focus is on ourselves and making sure we continue improving. Our attitude as Bulls is not to complain, but to adapt and grow.

“We always look at ourselves and even the guys who came on in the second half continued to fight and showed character. If we continue to improve than good results are on the way,” Gqoboka said.

While the match against Connacht was played in the old-fashioned venue of the Galway Greyhound Stadium (capacity 8129), which is open and allows the elements to take full force, the Bulls will be playing Cardiff on the high-tech 4G, artificial turf pitch at the Arms Park.

Bulls scrumhalf Zak Burger is a man who knows about playing in small venues missing the finer touches of a place like Loftus Versfeld as he moved to Pretoria from Griquas. He is looking forward to showing a bit more daring in better conditions for running rugby.

“A couple of times in Kimberley we would have a 40km/h wind in that open stadium and it made it very difficult in certain corners. Connacht used the wind really well last week in the second half and put us under big pressure.

“But as a scrumhalf I enjoy this 4G pitch in Cardiff a lot, you feel like you are running lighter, it’s nice to play on. I don’t know what the weather will be like on Saturday, but I hope it’s okay.

“We must use the conditions more and we are not far off, we’re getting our entries into the 22. But in the Currie Cup, where you get 10 chances and take five, in this competition you only get four and you have to take them all.

“If it’s wet and windy then we will have to kick more and we can’t run from our 22. We will have to put pressure on them with more tactical kicking. We need to play good rugby and attack where the space is,” Burger said.

Connacht, aided by the wind at their backs, broke free in the second half of their United Rugby Championship match against the Bulls at The SportsGround in Galway to turn a 10-7 halftime lead into a thumping 34-7 win on Friday night.

While the Bulls certainly rattled the home side in the first half, scoring first and causing their defence many anxious moments, their inability to adapt at the breakdowns and their inaccuracy in that key department gave Connacht too much free turnover ball and the Irish side were slick in capitalising. The Bulls were too quick to go off their feet at the rucks and were heavily penalised.

“We had enough chances in the first half and in the second half we were up against it because they understand how to play here with the wind pumping and the rain coming down, we struggled to get up the hill, there’s a significant rise and a slope down there in the corner where we got trapped,” Bulls coach Jake White said after the game.

“But we’ve got to adapt, there were a couple of calls that went against us, they had the rub of the green like winning a vital toss in cricket, but we turned ball over in our own half.

“It’s all about learning how to adapt to another environment, it’s as simple as that. The reality is we were not good in conditions that did not suit us, we weren’t accurate, we lost a lot of ball at the back of rucks.

“We’re away from home and we just have to learn and find a way to win. You could see the spring in Connacht’s step when they were 10-7 up at halftime and they knew we had not done enough in the first half,” White said.

Frustrated by how often they were penalised at the attacking breakdown, the Bulls called into service the box-kick in the second half, but that did not go well as Connacht counter-attacked superbly through elusive wing Mack Hansen and powerhouse inside centre Tom Daly.

A dreadful basic error early in the second half by scrumhalf Zak Burger at the base of a scrum put Connacht immediately on attack and Daly muscled over for a try. But the killer blow came in the 49^th minute when Hansen scored off a kick with a brilliant mazy run. There was a hint of obstruction in the try, but the officials allowed it to stand after watching replays, having ruled out a Connacht try in the first half for a marginal forward pass.

“Marcell Coetzee did ask the referee and some might argue that Lizo Gqoboka was obstructed. But we don’t want to be box-kicking and giving the ball away.

“We’ve got to find other ways to score points and not just rely on that and getting calls at scrums and mauls. But it’s so tough over here and at times we played really well, but our decision-making and accuracy needs to be better, especially on our carries and at the breakdown,” White said.

Scorers

Connacht – Tries: Tiernan O’ Halloran, Tom Daly (2), Mack Hansen, Tom Farrell. Conversions: Jack Carty (3). Penalty: Carty.

Bulls – Try: Lizo Gqoboka. Conversion: Johan Goosen.

The Bulls will have another mountain to climb in adapting to European rugby on Friday night as they take on Connacht at The Sportsground in Galway, but there is no cable car to quickly take you to the top of the peak when it comes to the experience they will require to be contenders in the United Rugby Championship.

On Thursday, the Bulls were warned by one of the local journalists on the virtual press conference that “all we can offer you is wind and rain” and coach Jake White likened the importance of the conditions to a cricket match when winning the toss is vital.

“It’s going to be tough conditions with rain and wind. I know Connacht from being there before, it’s a very open field, a bit like UCT. You can struggle into the wind and when you’re with the wind you have to take advantage.

The conditions are a great leveler and you need experience to handle that properly. It’s like a cricket match when batting or bowling first becomes very important.

“Connacht train to play their game in that weather every day and it’s another opportunity for our young group to see what it’s like to play against a very adaptable side who know what their strengths are. If they graduate to Test rugby then every game is always different, like it is in the URC.

“It’s like a golfer who only trains in the sunshine and then he has to tee it up at St Andrew’s. You’ve got to learn how to adapt and you just have to go through the lessons,” White said.

While White wants the Bulls’ game-plan to be based 50/50 around both forwards and backs, he knows Friday night’s match is likely to become a forward-dominated kicking battle. Which is one of the main reasons he has chosen Ruan Combrinck, who can kick off either foot, as starting fullback for the first time.

“I don’t think there’s going to be too much attack and Ruan is good under the high ball and a Springbok. His kicking game gives us left and right-footed options at the back and I think this will be the game that suits him most, it’s going to be all about kicking and territory.

“He has also not had much game-time since joining us so we wanted to look at him, and we need to find another back-up option to David Kriel at fullback. If it’s a rainy and windy evening, it’s not always easy to display those backline skills,” White said.

Bulls team: Ruan Combrinck, Cornal Hendricks, Lionel Mapoe, Harold Vorster, Stravino Jacobs, Johan Goosen, Zak Burger; Elrigh Louw, Arno Botha, Marcell Coetzee (CAPT, ABE Midas Naka Bulle), Ruan Nortje, Walt Steenkamp, Lizo Gqoboka, Joe van Zyl, Jacques van Rooyen. Bench – Bismarck du Plessis, Simphiwe Matanzima, Mornay Smith, Janko Swanepoel, Jacques du Plessis, Embrose Papier, Chris Smith, Stedman Gans.