Ken Borland

It’s been an absolute age since Munster made such a poor start to their season, but the Bulls also produced their worst performance in a long time last weekend, so their United Rugby Championship clash at Thomond Park on Saturday night is going to be a tense affair.

Munster are currently a lowly 12^th in the URC standings, having lost three of their four games. They have never finished outside the top-10 of the competition in all its previous guises.

The Bulls were hammered 35-21 by Glasgow Warriors last weekend, their first loss this season.

“Munster have not had the best start,” Bulls backline coach Chris Rossouw acknowledged on Tuesday, “but they still have very good players. Plus their Ireland A players will be back from South Africa.

“They have a very good record in Limerick and halfbacks Conor Murray and Ben Healy control the game very well.

“Damian de Allende is a big departure, he is sorely missed by them, you can see that already. But they play the same way as last year with a strong forward pack,” Rossouw said.

The Bulls have also obviously not been at their best, but may well be boosted by the international-class services of flyhalf Johan Goosen and wing Sbu Nkosi this weekend.

Rossouw spoke of the need for them to be able to adapt better to setbacks in the heat of the moment, which is not always easy to do for a young side.

“It was obviously a big disappointment against Glasgow, but if you’re off your game then you will obviously get big points against you, like in Super Rugby. We did not get things right and got a big hiding,” Rossouw said.

“What was frustrating was that we just could not convert. Our maul got disrupted and, although we’re not meant to say it, probably illegally. They also attacked us at the breakdown.

“We’ve cleared up some issues with the referee and we need to do things differently in the maul and sharpen up at the rucks. You can’t have that many opportunities and not convert.

“In the heat of the moment, you need that ability to adapt and make plans. We try and incorporate that into our training, constantly trying to find a different way and how to vary our play,” Rossouw said.

Having restricted world No.5 Belgium to just a 2-1 lead going into the final quarter, South Africa will burn with regret that they let their opening Women’s Hockey World Cup match slip and lost 4-1 at the weekend, making Tuesday’s clash against Japan vital if they are to make the quarterfinals.

A wonderful defensive effort by the 15^th-ranked South Africans saw them keep Belgium scoreless in the first 15 minutes, repelling 13 circle entries, seven penalty corners and seven shots at goal. But Belgium eventually broke through in the second quarter, with two penalty corner goals in a minute scored by Stephanie van den Borre.

But the setback did not douse the flame of returning coach Giles Bonnet’s team, and they fought back to dominate the closing stages of the first half, pulling the score back to 2-1 as debutant Jean-Leigh du Toit fired into goal from a short corner.

That gave them some momentum and belief, and the teams slogged out a goal-less, tight third quarter, South Africa being unable to convert from two penalty corners.

Unfortunately for the South Africans, it was the Europeans who took the game by the scruff of the neck in the final quarter and they were at their most dominant, winning seven penalty corners and creating 17 shots at goal. Charlotte Engelbert was open on the back post at a short corner and she finished easily, before adding her second goal when she reacted first from a save by goalkeeper Phumelela Mbande and fired into the bottom-left corner.

“We are in a very tough pool, but there’s always a surprise result in these tournaments and we hoped it would be us,” Bonnet said.

Having opened their campaign with a defeat, the South Africans play Japan on Tuesday at 6pm. Japan lost 2-0 to Australia in their opening match, so both teams will be desperate for a win to qualify for the quarterfinal crossover phase of the tournament, which is being staged in Spain and the Netherlands.

The Bulls acknowledge that Saturday’s United Rugby Championship quarterfinal against the Sharks at Loftus Versfeld is a 50/50 game, but they will go into the knockout clash with fresh minds and bodies, happy with the rugby they are playing.

Walt Steenkamp has had a pleasing impact in the No.4 jersey since joining the Bulls from the Free State Cheetahs in November 2020, and he said the pack are so content with how they are operating as a unit that they are even happy to see the backs score all the tries!

“The team relies a lot on us for front-foot ball and it was nice to see only backs scoring against Ospreys in our last match, so we can give the credit to them,” Steenkamp said with a smile on Tuesday.

“We have played so much rugby this year, so the break since then has given us the chance to rest our sore bodies. And myself and Ruan Nortje have enjoyed a good combination at lock.

“They always say altitude matters, but the Sharks have played here a lot, they would have prepared for it, plus they come from a place with high humidity, so it’s a 50/50 game.

“But playing finals rugby is about having a mindset change, because if you lose then you’re out. So we have to give 100% and Jake White is a great coach who knows how to play finals rugby,” Steenkamp said.

The Bulls have lost both their URC matches against the Sharks this season, largely due to some terrible discipline and getting a mauling in the scrums. Those are the two areas Steenkamp highlighted as requiring improvement on Saturday.

“The Sharks lineout and scrum is good, but we have plans for them,” Steenkamp said. “We have conceded four or five penalties a game at scrum time against them, so we’ve worked hard on that.

“You get different interpretations at the scrums, so we plan for the referees as well and try and show them good pictures.

“But also, the last time we played the Sharks, we played 60 minutes with 14 men because of a red card, so discipline is also very important.

“The Sharks pack is always very good as a whole, there are no weaknesses. But we think we can put pressure there. It’s finals rugby, but we will still stick to what works for us,” Steenkamp said.

Many teams coming to Loftus Versfeld these days try to ignore the effects of altitude, but one factor the Bulls are hoping Munster are not able to brush aside in their United Rugby Championship clash in Pretoria on Saturday is the late afternoon heat of a summer’s day.

Kick-off on Saturday is at 4.05pm and, judging by the weather forecast for Pretoria this week, the temperature could still be a warm 28°, a far cry from the 7° Munster was shivering in on Monday.

“We hope the conditions at home will give us a bit of an advantage,” Bulls flyhalf Chris Smith said on Monday. “The coastal teams battle with altitude here and hopefully the sun is out on Saturday.

“Hopefully it’s cooking for the 4pm kickoff and that heat could actually be more important for us than the altitude. We hope we can chase them around the field with the sun beaming down.

“We want to make them tired and then hopefully the game will open up a bit later on. But it’s going to be a good challenge for us, to measure ourselves against top players in the URC,” Smith said.

It’s a big sporting week for the Smith family, with Chris’s teenage brother Daniel scoring his maiden first-class century for the Western Province cricket team. The 27-year-old Chris Smith is a key figure in the Bulls side at present, with Morne Steyn suspended and Johan Goosen out injured, and he has enjoyed very good outings against both Zebre in Parma and Griquas in Kimberley.

“I’ve definitely felt the pressure because I’ve mostly played off the bench for the last two years, I have not played many full 80s,” Smith said. “But I see it more as an opportunity.

“It’s more the pressure I’m putting on myself to make use of this opportunity than any external pressure.

“I’ve been working on playing more flat and being more in the defence’s faces. I do tend to hang back a bit, I sometimes rely more on my passing game than my running game,” Smith said.