Ken Borland

The facts at the end of the day show that the Bulls scored six tries to two and beat Benetton Treviso 46-29 with a bonus point in their United Rugby Championship match at Loftus Versfeld on Saturday, but they were a sick and sluggish beast in the first half.

Bulls badly off colour in first half

The Bulls did not make a good start to the match as they gave away a soft penalty and then a soft try inside the first dozen minutes to trail 10-0. The impression that this was a sickly Bulls side, their usual confident attitude not being there, as they missed 11 of the 36 tackles they had to make in the first half and were also lethargic at the breakdowns, being turned over five times. That they only trailed 12-16 at halftime was thanks to fullback Kurt-Lee Arendse scoring in the 41^st minute thanks to a lovely long pass out wide by flyhalf Chris Smith.

When the Bulls get gainline dominance they are hard to stop and that’s a fact! Once the Bulls shrugged off their lethargy and started pressurising the gain-line, the Benetton Treviso challenge fell away. Gaining dominance in the collisions had the rub-off effect of sorting out their breakdown problems and the Bulls’ power game also saw them dominate in the scrums, earning penalties for territory, and their maul started to get good traction in the second half as well.

Christmas comes early for Kurt-Lee Arendse

The Bulls also made a sloppy start to the second half, but the advent of the 50^th minute saw fullback Arendse gifted a try as centre Iganacio Brex’s terrible pass went to ground behind his own line and the Bulls’ whippet pounced, racing away from his own 10m line to score.

In the final quarter Arendse then set up the try that sealed the contest with a brilliant counter-attack. Going back into his 22 to field a kick, he beat the first defender and was away; lock Ruan Nortje galloped up in support and he made the final pass to wing Canan Moodie to score.

Mixed afternoon for Chris Smith

Bulls flyhalf Chris Smith struggled with his goalkicking, missing three of his eight shots at goal, including his first two as the home side struggled to get going. But his distribution was fantastic. His change of direction to go blind for flank Cyle Brink to score was a moment of fine vision, helped by hooker Johan Grobbelaar’s burst and Nortje’s deft offload.

Smith and Arendse also combined brilliantly for the crucial score after the halftime hooter.

Scorers

Bulls – Tries: Cyle Brink, Kurt-Lee Arendse (2), Marcell Coetzee, Canan Moodie, Simphiwe Matanzima. Conversions: Chris Smith (3), Morne Steyn (2). Penalties: Smith (2).

Benneton Treviso – Tries: Tommaso Menoncello (2). Conversions: Rhyno Smith (2). Penalties: Smith (5).

The Bulls are still in search of the perfect game as they enter the business end of the United Rugby Championship, with coach Jake White saying how they complete the last three weeks of round-robin action will define their campaign.

While their opponents on Saturday at Loftus Versfeld, Benetton Treviso, are almost 100% likely to miss out on the playoffs according to the StatMaster possibilities released by the URC on Friday, the importance of the game for the Bulls is shown by the prediction that, if they win, they will be 95% certain of a place in the top eight, while defeat will see their odds plummet from 83% currently to just 60%.

And with a match against the third-placed Glasgow Warriors and then a visit to Ospreys to follow, the Bulls probably can’t afford to let a win slip on Saturday.

“It’s tough for everybody at the back end of the competition,” White said, “in the next three weeks the whole competition can turn on its head. It’s three big games for everyone and then hopefully three more to win the tournament.

“So we are taking nothing for granted, there is still a lot of rugby to be played. You want to be playing your best rugby at the back end of the competition, that’s the way you want to progress, not play your best rugby in the beginning and not make the playoffs.

“We are not where we want to be yet, but against Benetton I want to see continued improvement.

“If we do that then we still control our own destiny in terms of where we end up. We’ve been playing well and we want to build on that,” White said.

The Bulls do not quite have a 100% bill of good health for the game, with powerful inside centre Harold Vorster having tested positive for Covid, but moving to 12 should be water off a duck’s back for Cornal Hendricks, given how he flourished in the position when White moved him there in 2020.

Apart from his attacking prowess, the former Springbok wing is quite happy to get stuck in in defence, never leaving the field with lilywhite shorts.

“Cornal has shown he is very capable of playing inside centre, he was the talk of the town there when Harold arrived at Loftus,” White pointed out. “He can be direct, he’s big and strong.

“The combination with Chris Smith at flyhalf has had lots of game-time and done well. Cornal brings different strengths to Harold and that might be the style we want to play … ”

Although there is a chance of rain on Saturday, it is not going to be the sort of tropical storms that batter Kings Park and White expects altitude to be a worry for the Italians, whatever the weather.

“I’ve heard the weather won’t be that great, but it’s not as if there’s going to be hail or blistering winds. It’s still at high altitude at 2pm, and that will be different to what Benetton are used to.

“We want to play quickly and use the altitude as an advantage, get our tempo and attack going. When we get the ball we want to hang on to it and show our confidence,” White said.

Bulls – Kurt-Lee Arendse,Canan Moodie,Lionel Mapoe,Cornal Hendricks,Madosh Tambwe,Chris Smith,Embrose Papier,Elrigh Louw,Cyle Brink,Marcell Coetzee (CAPT),Ruan Nortje,Walt Steenkamp,Mornay Smith,Johan Grobbelaar,Gerhard Steenekamp. IMPACT:Jan-Hendrik Wessels,Simphiwe Matanzima,Dylan Smith,Janko Swanepoel,Arno Botha,Zak Burger,Morne Steyn,Stedman Gans.

When you post 367 in your first innings and then reduce the opposition to 101 for five and your spinners have been as dominant as South Africa’s were, there is bound to be some disappointment when your lead is whittled down to just 75 by the end of the day, but that’s what happened to the Proteas on the third day of the first Test against Bangladesh at Kingsmead on Saturday.

Thanks to the epic defiance of opening batsman Mahmudul Hasan Joy, who was last man out for 137 made in 442 minutes off 326 balls, Bangladesh made it all the way to 298 all out.

It meant South Africa still emerged with a handy lead of 69, which openers Sarel Erwee and Dean Elgar extended to 75 as they reached six without loss in the four overs of their second innings that were possible before bad light and rain stopped play at 4.10pm.

But it could have been so much more with better bowling and catching. Most crucially, Liton Das was dropped on 16, a straightforward chance to Dean Elgar at first slip off Lizaad Williams, and he went on to score 41 and share an 82-run partnership with Joy that lifted Bangladesh from 101 for five to 183 for six.

There were three other half-chances that went down too through the innings, and South Africa, who were able to take the second new ball in the second over after lunch with Bangladesh on 186 for six, will be disappointed by how Williams and Duanne Olivier lost the lengths that they had been bowling earlier.

Williams had bowled Liton in the 79^th over with a beautiful delivery with the old ball that nipped back sharply, but Joy and Yasir Ali were flourishing against the new ball, having added 33 when Yasir fell for 22 to a car-crash of a run out.

But Bangladesh’s next partnership between Joy and Mehidy Hasan Miraz was smoothly underway as they added 51 for the eighth wicket before Wiaan Mulder had Mehidy caught at slip for 29.

Joy then accelerated, quickly cutting the deficit from exactly 100 to 69 as he struck 27 runs off his next 17 deliveries with five fours and a six.

But the promising Williams ended his fun by having him caught at slip, to finish with three for 54 in 18.5 overs in his debut Test.

Simon Harmer failed to add to his wicket-tally of the previous day, finishing with four for 103 in 40 overs as the Bangladesh batsmen showed much more intent against him and Keshav Maharaj on Saturday.

So South Africa’s gritty women’s cricket side fell once again at the semi-final stage of the World Cup, bringing an enthralling campaign to an end. So where to next for Hilton Moreeng’s plucky Proteas?

It is vital that the feel-good factor surrounding the women’s Proteas is maintained. While there has been a substantial improvement in the amount of investment into the women’s game in recent years, thanks to the sponsorship of Momentum and the increased focus from Cricket South Africa, there is still a sizeable gap when it comes to the amount of money flowing to the men’s game as compared to our ladies.

It is the same with every sport and Momentum issued figures this week which show that 61.1% of commercial investment in South African sport goes to the men, and only 4% of television coverage goes to women’s sport. This despite 40% of all sports participants being women.

The reason for this disparity is partly because of the lower viewership numbers for women’s sport. So if you want to support the Proteas women, make sure you watch all their televised games and encourage others to do so too. Of course they also need the backing of the television stations to actually broadcast their matches and it would also help if South Africa’s ladies could play more often.

Having unequivocally proved that they are one of the best sides in the world, and with superstars like Laura Wolvaardt, Marizanne Kapp, Sune Luus, Shabnim Ismail and Dane van Niekerk (when she returns from injury), there should be teams eager to play against us.

Although South Africa were rather heavily beaten by England in their semi-final, it will please coach Moreeng that his side won several desperately tight encounters at the World Cup. That showed their mental toughness. The main reason they lost by 137 runs to defending champions England was their shoddy catching, with centurion Danni Wyatt dropped five times on her own!

But that sort of fielding sloppiness can be fixed. It is actually a malaise that needs to be rectified across the board in South African cricket.

One also needs to give Moreeng enormous credit for the work he has done in moulding such a powerful team.

He became national women’s coach at the end of 2012, when they had recently finished fourth in the Women’s World Cup Qualifier, behind Sri Lanka, Pakistan and the West Indies, all teams they are now beating with regularity.

They only finished sixth in the 2012/13 World Cup, but the growth of players like Ayabonga Khaka, Luus, Lizelle Lee, Lara Goodall and, most especially, the magnificent Wolvaardt, has lifted them clearly into the top three in the world.

With the national team in such a good space, it is now time for CSA and their sponsors to give more attention to the domestic women’s game.

While CSA, thanks to the support of Momentum, now provide the 14 top national players with full-time contracts, wouldn’t it be great to see our leading provincial sides hiring players on a fully professional basis as well.

Of course they will need financial support from sponsors to do that, and sponsors need exposure, which in this day and age generally means television coverage.

Broadcasters want to know there will be thousands of eyeballs glued to whatever they put on the screen.

But there is no doubt the interest in women’s cricket is growing exponentially at the moment. The time is right for major steps in the development of the game.