Ken Borland

Bulls coach Jake White all but admitted on Friday that it will be a long shot for his team to beat Leinster, symbols of all that is strong in European rugby, when they meet in their opening United Rugby Championship match at the Aviva Stadium in Dublin on Saturday, but he added that it is a lengthy competition and whatever happens, South Africa’s champions will know how close they are to competing for honours up north.

Leinster won the last four editions of the Pro14 before the rebranding with the arrival of the four South African franchises, and they are also perennial contenders for the Champions Cup, Europe’s premier competition, having reached the knockout stages in 12 of the last 13 years and winning the title five times.

“It’s all an unknown for us but a great opportunity. Leinster are like the Barcelona of rugby and there’s not much I have to say to the team about playing them. It will be a great benchmark of where we are early on, it will be  a huge test coming up against guys who have played 30-40 Tests for Ireland and European finals. They are by far the leaders in European rugby.

“We have guys who have played against the same teams in the Currie Cup, which is a significant difference. So it’s going to be a massive fixture for us but it is a long tournament – we could play 21 more games. So one thing we can learn from Leinster is that it’s not so much about the first game, they have often been slow starters, it’s about how you adapt and evolve through the competition,” White said.

The Sharks, bridesmaids to the Bulls since rugby returned after Covid, have a similarly dauting task as they take on Munster, perennial runners-up to Leinster recently, on Saturday night. One gets the feeling the Sharks legged it to Ireland with some relief as their last match was yet another defeat to the Bulls at Loftus Versfeld, the biggest margin of defeat in Currie Cup final history.

But the Sharks are traditionally good travellers and coach Sean Everitt knows they will be playing finals rugby once again, rather than the running game they would probably prefer.

“Munster are a well-drilled team who do not give you much, so it’s going to be about execution on the day. Johann van Graan is a well-organised coach, he’s been involved at the highest level with the Springboks and has brought a style to Munster that is very difficult to play against – they suffocate and strangle you. They are a well-oiled machine.

“Munster defend really well and have a strong kicking game – they want to trap you into playing in the wrong areas. So it’s going to be tough for us, but we are focused on what we need to do to succeed. We need to manage the game better and be more disciplined in that regard,” Everitt said.

The Stormers, given their recent troubles, will be grateful that they start against Italian opposition in the form of Benetton Treviso.

But Treviso were the team that destroyed the Bulls in the Rainbow Cup final and, given the Western Cape team’s struggles against their arch-rivals recently, they will have their hands full in northern Italy.

Springbok captain Siya Kolisi has enjoyed an excellent success rate as skipper of the national side over the last two years, but back-to-back losses have cut into his winning record a bit, if not his positivity.
Kolisi belatedly took over the captaincy in 2018 in one of Rassie Erasmus’s first masterstrokes and his record that year was understandably mixed given the depths to which Springbok rugby had sunk. In that first year South Africa won seven and lost six of their Tests under Kolisi.
But 2019 was nothing short of a triumph as the Springboks only lost one of their seven Tests with the then-Stormers flank at the helm. Five wins from eight Tests this year sees Kolisi’s overall winning ratio slip to 64%, pretty much on level terms with Jean de Villiers.

The last time South Africa lost successive Tests was back in 2018 – against Argentina in Mendoza and Australia in Brisbane, and then versus New Zealand at Loftus Versfeld and England at Twickenham. But with the losses against the Wallabies coming after two years of success and expectation, one might have thought these are the toughest times of Kolisi’s captaincy.

But Kolisi’s attitude is always team first and the 30-year-old is focused on how the team can get better.

“This has not been the most difficult time in my captaincy, although obviously it is very disappointing. But we have faced tougher challenges. I just try to take it week-by week, obviously you don’t want to lose two in a row. So our focus is on what we have done wrong and how we can improve.

“We’ve messed things up ourselves and the things we are normally good at we got wrong. So the focus is on our plan, what we are good at. We want to play our own style at our own pace. The last two weeks have been tough, but the biggest thing is that we get all our stuff right this weekend,” Kolisi said.

Kolisi was at the front of the Springboks again when they ran out to face the All Blacks haka with his usual intense stare. But within those muscular, powerful bodies, as tough and tenacious as a Staffy, beat hearts like the normal human being and the team know how important their success is to millions back at home.

“We can’t lie about it, we know how important rugby is, we know what people at home are expecting and want to see. That’s what we think about in our rooms, and it’s important to us too. We use that energy to focus on our game, it motivates us although we always give everything we can on the field,” Kolisi said.

There’s no guarantee that veteran Springbok Ruan Pienaar will enjoy sweet success upon his return to the Sharks team for the first time in 11 years, but what he will certainly bring is the right approach to the game when the KwaZulu-Natalians begin their United Rugby Championship journey with a daunting match against Munster, one of the biggest teams in Europe, in Limerick on Saturday.

Pienaar slots straight back into the starting scrumhalf position for the Sharks and, with a relatively inexperienced flyhalf in Boeta Chamberlain named on Thursday, it is the veteran of 88 Tests who will no doubt be calling the shots in terms of game-management. The 37-year-old has also played plenty of rugby at flyhalf so being the general is nothing new to him, and he also spent seven years playing for another Irish club, Ulster.

“Ruan obviously brings a lot of experience, which is important when you have a young flyhalf like Boeta. He has been training very well, he is a leader in his own right and he knows these conditions and the teams we will be playing against. He has an understanding of what needs to be done to win here, and is presence is massive for us.

“You just see the quality of his training day-in, day-out, and he has settled in very easily because we play a similar style to the Free State Cheetahs, so the transition has been seamless. We need to manage our game better and be more disciplined in that regard, and Ruan understands that. He has good awareness of how to manage a game,” coach Sean Everitt said on Thursday.

The arrival of Pienaar on loan means a top-class talent like Sanele Nohamba is on the bench, but Everitt is clearly expecting a tight, almost Test-like tussle before the Sharks can hopefully use their pace and expansive game later in the match. That is also why Curwin Bosch continues to be preferred at fullback, providing a big boot from the back, and Chamberlain, a 22-year-old who is a tough cookie and has shown a commanding all-round game before, gets the No.10 jersey.

“Curwin is at fullback because of the way Munster play, we’re looking for a kicking option at 15, where we used to have Aphelele Fassi and his big left boot, as well as Andre Esterhuizen at 12. Curwin also has the ability to counter-attack well from the back. Munster defend really well and have a strong kicking game, they want to trap you into playing in the wrong areas.

“Boeta is an all-round player, he has a good skill-set, kicks well, distributes nicely and is good on the counter-attack. We’ve been blooding him slowly, but he started against the Hurricanes in Super Rugby and did very well, plus he had a very good Preparation Series and was excellent when we beat the Bulls at Kings Park in the wet in March. We’ve surrounded him with experience and he’s a guy for the future who can turn a game on his day,” Everitt said.

Sharks – Curwin Bosch, Yaw Penxe, Werner Kok, Marius Louw, Thaakir Abrahams, Boeta Chamberlain, Ruan Pienaar, Phepsi Buthelezi (c), Henco Venter, Dylan Richardson, Gerbrandt Grobler, Le Roux Roets, Thomas du Toit (v/c), Kerron van Vuuren, Khwezi Mona. Bench: Fez Mbatha, Ntuthuko Mchunu, Khutha Mchunu, Mpilo Gumede, Ruben van Heerden, Hyron Andrews, Sanele Nohamba, Jeremy Ward.

The Bulls have overcome all manner of pressure and played some fine rugby, becoming a real pain in the neck for their South African rivals, but if there is one performance where fingers could be pointed at them for not pitching, it was the Rainbow Cup final against Benetton Treviso in June. But fullback David Kriel said on Tuesday that the squad has taken those lessons from Italy on board.

They will need to have learnt from the harsh lesson they were dished out that day because, in their first trip overseas since Super Rugby in March 2020 they were humbled 35-8 by Treviso, who were considered no-hopers before the game. And now on Saturday they face the might of Leinster at the Aviva Stadium in Dublin in their first ever United Rugby Championship match.

“It’s another opportunity for us to build on what we learnt from the Benetton Treviso game, which was not our best performance. But we took it as a stepping stone and an opportunity for growth. It was a challenging experience but good for the squad. This time around we want to be more clinical and play like the championship side we are.

“It’s comforting that this time we are in Europe for a while, we can get used to the conditions and the lifestyle, and it will certainly benefit the squad being together for a whole month. Personally, it allows me to be like a sponge and soak up the lessons while I’m still young. We are the Currie Cup champions, we must own it and we know that Leinster will want to show they are better than us,” Kriel said.

Given their pedigree, with five European titles and being one of only four teams to ever defend the European Cup, no-one is ever going to err by considering Leinster the underdogs when they take on a Bulls side that has swept all aside at home but is yet to prove themselves overseas.

And the 22-year-old Kriel is certainly aware of how imperious Leinster have been in dominating the Pro14 that preceded the URC.

“Growing up I would always watch a quality side like Leinster. Someone like Johnny Sexton is still playing, but previously those great centres Brian O’Driscoll and Gordon D’Arcy played for Leinster too. So I’m a bit nervous about playing against them, but also very excited for the opportunity.

“The Currie Cup prepared us for lots of high-ball catching and the URC sides love that too, so as outside backs we’ve been working hard to make sure we don’t make mistakes there. Otherwise, as a fullback you’re not necessarily in the game for the whole 80 minutes, so I just try to be everywhere looking for work, wherever I can be used,” Kriel said.