Ken Borland

The Bulls are going into the Currie Cup final with just one change to their team for the semi-final – Johan Grobbelaar starting at hooker and Schalk Erasmus going to the bench – which means disappointment for Sevens Springbok Stedman Gans.

The outside centre has been one of the stars of the season for the Bulls, but was a late withdrawal from last weekend’s semifinal against the Lions with a hamstring strain. Coach Jake White said on Thursday that Gans has not recovered enough for him to be willing to gamble on selecting him.

“I don’t think Stedman is ready, it would be a helluva risk to play him, especially since there’s often extra time in finals. So he’s not available, it was a tough call for him and I’m sure he’s very disappointed. But I’ve been very happy with Marco Jansen van Vuren as well, he’s defended well, especially against the Lions, who will really stretch and test you. So he has massive confidence at the moment,” White explained.

White chose to deflect a question over what the Bulls had learnt from their loss to the Sharks in their previous meeting, a 32-29 defeat in Durban last month, by saying if one learns more from defeats than from victory, then the Bulls are the “masters of learning” given their failure to win the Currie Cup since 2009.

“We should be the masters of learning then. The Bulls are tired of losing, tired of not playing in finals, so it’s a massive game on Saturday. We’re playing at home, so it’s a great opportunity and there is a tremendous hunger in the side. It’s an incredible achievement to host the final and now the cherry on top would be to win. Remembering that guys like Jean de Villiers and Schalk Burger, two of the best players I ever coached, never won the Currie Cup,” White said.

The 2007 World Cup winning coach acknowledged that winning the Currie Cup would be a highlight of his career, while adding that an international star like Duane Vermeulen had never lifted the famous old trophy as a captain.

“It would mean a lot to me to win because I have great respect for the Currie Cup. And you can see the players’ desire, which is giving them energy and an unbelievable drive to get it right on Saturday. Sometimes it’s great not to have won it before. It’s a great honour to win the Currie Cup, you think about the great players who have drunk out of the trophy …

“It’s a long time since the Bulls last won the Currie Cup and then you look at someone like Duane, who has won the Currie Cup twice and a World Cup, but he’s never won as captain. And the players can see what that means to him, so they are lifting their game. When your captain is a legend like that and he wants it so badly, you’re going to do whatever you have to do,” White said.

Bulls team – David Kriel, Kurt-Lee Arendse, Marco Jansen van Vuren, Cornal Hendricks, Stravino Jacobs, Morné Steyn, Ivan van Zyl, Duane Vermeulen (captain), Elrigh Louw, Marco van Staden, Ruan Nortje, Sintu Manjezi, Trevor Nyakane, Johan Grobbelaar, Lizo Gqoboka. Bench: Schalk Erasmus, Jacques van Rooyen, Mornay Smith, Jan Uys, Arno Botha, Embrose Papier, Chris Smith, Marnus Potgieter.

Twenty-year-old scrumhalf Jaden Hendrikse has been pushed front and centre by the Sharks as he will be starting in the Currie Cup final against the Bulls in Pretoria on Saturday in the only change to the semi-final line-up announced by coach Sean Everitt on Thursday.

It has been an age since South Africa had such riches at scrumhalf, with World Cup star Faf de Klerk and Cobus Reinach overseas, Ivan van Zyl being consistently slick for the Bulls and Herschel Jantjies (WP) and Embrose Papier (Bulls) finding some form as well. And then there are the young talents at the Sharks: Sanele Nohamba has just turned 22 and is an exciting prospect even though he will be on the bench for the final; while Hendrikse is rated by Everitt as the next big thing.

“Jaden was actually supposed to start last weekend but he had a stomach ailment for most of the week so we thought it best to put him on the bench. He’s a good decision-maker at the base, a good defender and he even gets turnovers at the breakdown. But the main thing with him is his game-management, he conducts the play really well.

“Jaden is a tremendous talent, he’s a former nominee for World Junior Player of the Year for a reason and he has big game experience at U20 level. Then we will look at Sanele to bring tempo. He has a different skill set, he knows our plays really well and has come along nicely in terms of maturity. The last 20 minutes is going to be one of the most important parts of the final and Sanele can close out the game well,” Everitt said on Thursday.

One of the great successes of the Sharks’ game-plan at Newlands last weekend was the way they demolished the Western Province maul, which was one of the home side’s key building blocks of success this season. There are a few more Bulls buildings that the Sharks will need to demolish because their opposition has a greater range of attacking weapons than last week’s rivals, but being able to negate the Bulls’ lineout drive will stand the KwaZulu-Natalians in good stead.

“We haven’t had to train so many mauls this week because we had so many at the weekend! But we expect the Bulls to maul, they have their banker lineout jumpers and Russell Winter [forwards coach] has done a good job. But if you go back to when we beat them here in Durban, we stopped them at the drive, the pack stood up to them really well and there’s no reason they can’t do it again.

“JJ van der Mescht has a massive role to play in that, he has a lot of physicality and defends well, he’s brilliant at stopping mauls and he loves doing it. The more he plays the better he seems to get. Everyone says how badly Western Province played, but no-one gives the Sharks any credit for how many mauls we defended. The plan was to not give them any lineouts, we gave them 13 but we stopped them all,” Everitt pointed out.

Sharks team – Aphelele Fassi, Sbu Nkosi, Lukhanyo Am (c), Marius Louw, Yaw Penxe, Curwin Bosch, Jaden Hendrikse, Sikhumbuzo Notshe, Henco Venter, Dylan Richardson, Ruben van Heerden, JJ van der Mescht, Thomas du Toit, Fezokuhle Mbatha, Ox Nche. Bench: Dan Jooste, Mzamo Majola, Michael Kumbirai, Hyron Andrews, Thembelani Bholi, Sanele Nohamba, Jeremy Ward, Manie Libbok

Front-foot ball and the ability to control the tempo of the game and execute their game-plan were the prime reasons for the Bulls’ success as they beat the Lions 26-21 in their Currie Cup semi-final at Loftus Versfeld on Saturday.

A superbly-controlled first half by the Bulls gave them an 11-0 lead, but there was a second-half wobble when the gutsy Lions fought back to level the score at 14-14 with two tries. But the Bulls then regrouped, and helped tremendously by the Lions’ ill-discipline which saw both locks, Marvin Orie and Willem Alberts, yellow-carded in the space of three minutes, they scored two tries to settle the issue.

The Lions scored a consolation try after the final hooter through centre Burger Odendaal, but they were a beaten side by then.

The Bulls’ dominance started with an excellent scrummaging display and, even though the Lions did win a couple of penalties at that set-piece, the home side won the scrums at vital moments. Their defence was also superb and the pressure they exerted led to the Lions simply making too many errors.

The Bulls backline, expertly marshalled by halfbacks Morne Steyn and Ivan van Zyl, also looked in prime attacking mood and their first try, in the 10^th minute, featured some superb running rugby in the build-up before Steyn, who had earlier made the break into the 22 off a deft pass from Van Zyl, stuck through a diagonal grubber which wing Stravino Jacobs gathered beautifully considering the tricky bounce and crossed over the line.

Another penalty early in the second half, when the Lions were once again punished for trying to run out of their own 22, allowed the Bulls to extend their lead to 14-0. The Lions half was the location where most of the game was played, but when the visitors did manage to string some phases together inside the Bulls half they scored a fine try as Alberts thundered over.

But even their second try came from deep within their own territory as scrumhalf Andre Warner’s box-kick came down just outside his own 22. But Jacobs missed the catch, replacement Francke Horn gathered and sent Wandisile Simelane free on his outside. The exciting outside centre had already shown great feet and hands in the match, but now he showed tremendous pace as he raced away for the try that levelled the scores.

Still the Lions conceded penalties though and the Bulls were allowed to set a lineout maul from which replacement hooker Johan Grobbelaar scored. From the restart, Orie was then yellow-carded, perhaps a bit harshly, for a high tackle inside the Bulls’ 22. It put the home side hard on attack, Alberts was then yellow-carded after the Lions were guilty of continued offsides offences, and the Bulls predictably decided to scrum with both opposition locks off the field. A delicate crosskick from replacement flyhalf Chris Smith to Jacobs provided the matchwinning try.

Location, location, location as they say in the real estate world and the Lions simply spent too much time trying to play in the wrong areas.

Scorers

Bulls: Tries – Stravino Jacobs, Johan Grobbelaar, Stravino Jacobs. Conversion – Morne Steyn. Penalties – Steyn (3).

Lions: Tries – Willem Alberts, Wandisile Simelane, Burger Odendaal. Conversions – Elton Jantjies (3).

The Bulls have already broken their 10-year trophy-drought this season by winning the SuperRugby Unlocked title, but at the end of the day, the Currie Cup is the big prize they are after according to coach Jake White.

The Bulls won the SuperRugby Unlocked competition by four points and those points were then carried over to the Currie Cup. White’s charges have subsequently finished top of the log in the Currie Cup as well, but this time they have to get through two knockout matches to claim the silverware, starting with their semi-final against the Lions at Loftus Versfeld on Saturday afternoon.

“We’re not trying to be arrogant, but we said at the start of the season that we wanted to play in the final and win the Currie Cup. So we’ve now got two weeks left to play, whether you look at this season as one or two competitions or two competitions in one, at the end of the day we are in the playoffs. Now we want to get to the last round and win the trophy.

“We’ve done the hard work to get into the final, we’ve put the hard yards in to justify home advantage. The reality is we’ve got a lotto ticket for the last two rounds, hopefully we stay alive after this weekend. There won’t be any crowds but I still think it’s a massive bonus for the guys to sleep in their own beds, be in their own changeroom, all the little things,” White said this week.

While the 2007 World Cup winning coach acknowledged that it was far from a fait accompli that the Bulls would achieve their goal, White did make their journey in 2020/21 sound somewhat miraculous.

“I’ve coached in competitions before where the first and second team on the log don’t play in the quarterfinals, they go straight to the semis and get a week off. But sometimes the team that finished first on the log doesn’t win, there are still no guarantees even if you finish first. But this team really want to win the Currie Cup, they want to be part of history and write their own script.

“No-one expected us to do so well. I’ve had seven months to work with this group and in the last 10 years the Bulls had not won a senior trophy, we lost five of our six SuperRugby games last year and finished sixth in the Currie Cup in 2019, losing to Griquas at Loftus. So other teams were far ahead of us and I’m very satisfied with how things have gone. But we haven’t really won anything yet,” White said.