Ken Borland

Coach Jake White communicated to his Bulls team at the break that they “had not been great” in the first half, but then, with his bench coming on to great effect, he told them at the end of their impressive 43-9 hammering of the Sharks in their Rainbow Cup match at Loftus Versfeld at the weekend that he was “very proud” of them.

The Bulls only led 12-9 at halftime and were entrenched in an almighty arm-wrestle with the Sharks; but their slow poison bore fruit in the second half as they eventually overwhelmed their opponents, finishing with four tries and a bonus point.

“Slowly, slowly, we were able to grind them down because the Sharks are a very good side. The altitude caught up with them in the second half, but we didn’t have a great first half: We allowed too many balls to bounce and I think the Sharks probably won every contestable kick. But I’m very proud of the way we finished. Our forwards were really good and the backs played well in the second half.

“The bench coming on played a vital role and we were in the wonderful position to have two Springbok props on the bench. I wanted a full half from Lizo Gqoboka and Trevor Nyakane and it was great to be able to hold them back because I knew Thomas du Toit and Ox Nche would come hard at us. But our relatively young front row did very well in the first half and then Lizo made a big impact.

“Last week he did the same in setting up the try for Zak Burger and he’s also scrumming very well. He knows there’s an opportunity for him at the Springboks now that Beast Mtawarira has retired. Elrigh Louw was also fantastic for us and in the last 20 we were really able to make the tempo higher because we are really fit,” White said after the memorable triumph.

White once again praised openside flank Marco van Staden – “he has been unbelievable for us, week-after-week putting 150% into everything” – and it seems stupidity at this stage not to have him in the Springbok picture for the Lions series.

Veteran flyhalf Morne Steyn is apparently in the frame for the national squad and he gave a masterclass against the Sharks, deservedly winning the man of the match award. “His kicks through into the corner, turning the Sharks around, just showed his class. He slowly, slowly, squeezed the Sharks until they capitulated,” White said.

The coach also praised captain Duane Vermeulen and his three locks – Walt Steenkamp, Ruan Nortje and Janko Swanepoel – as being stand-out performers.

Sharks coach Sean Everitt was asked after their Rainbow Cup hammering at the hands of the Bulls at Loftus Versfeld what went wrong when they ran back out on to the field for the second half, and his simple answer was they were “manhandled”, which is why a 9-12 halftime deficit turned into a 43-9 hiding.

And it was the magnificent Bulls pack who did the damage, Duane Vermeulen once again being the talisman as the home forwards dominated the lineouts, scrummed powerfully, were commanding at the maul and without mercy on the gainline.

“The Bulls forwards were outstanding and forced us to give away penalties. They dominated us physically and we had no answer, which was disappointing. We battled to stop their maul and that led to penalty on top of penalty, for which we paid the price this time. We were manhandled.

“Conceding a penalty at the maul just compounds the problem because then they kick to the corner and maul again. And when we were in a good position, we would have a lineout turnover or concede a penalty at the scrum. So it’s not as if they exploited our game-plan, but rather the fundamentals of the game which we did not get right,” Everitt said after the heavy defeat.

The Sharks coach did not feel that his team were particularly ill-disciplined, but said an enormous penalty count against them was rather due to an unrelenting battering they were receiving. The Bulls were truly merciless and flyhalves Morne Steyn and Chris Smith converted all nine of their kicks at goal.

“I can’t fault the effort in the first half, when we stuck to the plan well and fired all the shots – the Bulls did not look like scoring. We attacked well in that first half, I thought our plan was well-balanced between kicking and ball-in-hand, but then we’d lose the ball out wide. It was just a case of not being able to convert.

“But in the second half they made us tired and fatigued and it’s always a tough day when you’re going backwards and conceding penalties. You have to credit the Bulls, they were outstanding, they hardly made a mistake and they kept us out. They have improved a lot under Jake White, but there is still a lot of rugby to be played and we are certainly not out of the race,” Everitt said.

Marco van Staden may be on his way to Leicester Tigers in July and is apparently not currently on the Springboks’ radar, but Bulls coach Jake White on Friday backed the loose forward’s credentials for the series against the British and Irish Lions.

And he is expecting the 25-year-old to push his case even more on Saturday as an all-Springbok Bulls loose trio takes on the in-form Sharks back row that includes Springbok skipper Siya Kolisi.

White on Friday restored the experienced Arno Botha, the scorer of two tries in the Currie Cup final against the Sharks, to his starting line-up and Van Staden, Botha and Duane Vermeulen versus Kolisi, Henco Venter and Sikhumbuzo Notshe will be a fascinating match-up.

“I’m not in the inner sanctum of the Springboks so I don’t know what they think and I know from being there before that they will have their own plan and players in mind for that. But it would seem highly unlikely that Marco is in their plans because he hasn’t been in the alignment camps. But he’s certainly not negative and he has been great for us.

“Marco is playing really good rugby and even though he’s leaving in July, we’re trying to get as much out of him as we can. He said he didn’t want to leave early, he wanted to finish his contract properly and so all three of our back row on Saturday are Springboks and it’s a great chance against Kolisi and Notshe for them to put their hands up,” White said on Friday.

Van Staden was particularly impressive last weekend against the Stormers, making 22 tackles and being his usual nuisance at the breakdowns.

The selection of Botha means Elrigh Louw, one of the brightest young playing talents at Loftus Versfeld, will be playing off the bench against the Sharks, alongside the likes of Springboks Lizo Gqoboka and Trevor Nyakane. The Bulls will undoubtedly be wanting to take the intensity up a notch in the final quarter.

While White is a big fan of the attributes of the 21-year-old Louw, and is merely giving him “a breather” after putting in two back-to-back 80-minute shifts, the coach also revealed that another player he has the highest hopes for, the 20-year-old front-ranker Jan-Hendrik Wessels, will be hooker this weekend for the Pretoria Rugby Club side, in a change of position for the former Grey College star who has played both loosehead and tighthead prop for the Bulls senior side.

“He’s a good rugby player who can do it all, he played lock for Grey in Standard 9 and then moved to prop in matric. He’s like John Smit, who I always knew would make it, but you want it to happen quicker because he could play 100 Tests. My patience is not running out with him, but he needs to be part of our team in the next six months and I’m trying to find a spot for him,” White said.

Bulls coach Jake White said on Friday that he is hopeful that the Captain’s Challenge will be used to reverse obvious mistakes in referee’s decisions and not as a “tactical weapon” in this weekend’s Rainbow Cup matches that see the Sharks travel to Pretoria to take on the Currie Cup champions.

The new law trial gives teams one review each to look at either an incident in the build-up to a try or suspected foul play. A successful challenge means the review is retained, but last weekend the Bulls’ match against the Stormers was regularly interrupted by referrals, which almost seemed to have become tit-for-tat between the two teams after Steven Kitshoff used it against his Bulls counterpart Duane Vermeulen in the opening minutes.

“I think the reviews have not been properly thought out and they probably could be used as a tactical weapon. But the feedback I’ve received from Mark Lawrence [SA Rugby referees head] and SA Rugby is that from now on unless the officials are 100% sure watching the replay in real time then they won’t go back on their decision. We can’t go back and look at every single breakdown because you’ll always find something on slow-mo.

“So I think common sense is coming out now. It took two hours, six minutes for our match against the Stormers to finish and apparently 63 minutes were lost across all the Rainbow Cup matches in the northern and southern hemisphere last weekend because of all the stoppages. That’s one hour of non-activity. We still need to make sure we stamp out head injuries, but some balance is important,” White said on Friday.

The Bulls coach said he was particularly looking forward to the Sharks as adversaries this weekend because they are rated so highly as a team to beat.

“The Sharks are obviously a good side and they have not made many changes, consistency is what they’re going for. They have 10 points from two games and it’s just like when I arrived at Loftus last year – the Sharks were top of the pops from Super Rugby and everyone said they were the team to beat. It’s exactly the same now, they’re a good side and I look forward to playing them again.

“It will be like the Currie Cup final again in the sense that we must win because they have a two-point headstart on us with those two bonus points. Our penalty count is a concern, but then I see that the Sharks have also given away an extraordinary amount of penalties, so it’s obviously just the way the game is being refereed at the moment. But we have the best referee [Jaco Peyper] in South Africa this weekend,” White said.