Ken Borland

There was once again precious little to cheer about for Bulls fans at Loftus Versfeld over the weekend as they went down 13-17 to the Hurricanes, but captain Pierre Spies still believes they are on the right track.

“We believe what we are doing is right, we’re just not executing it well enough. We believe we’re on the right track, although we’re not getting there at the moment,” Spies said after the Bulls’ second successive loss at Loftus Versfeld, where they were unbeaten last season.

For all the big names in the squad, the aura of home invincibility has gone as first a young Stormers pack and now a journeymen Hurricanes eight bossed them around, but Spies is talking as if there are only minor problems to fix.

“You need the bounce of the ball to go your way, although you mustn’t depend on it. I’m hopeful that next week things will fall our way. But we first need to look at ourselves and be more clinical.

“These defeats can still pull the team together, you only learn in tough times, and in 2007 we started with two losses but still had a good season. We’ve worked hard, so I know it will come together,” Spies said.

Spies’s memory of the Bulls’ first SuperRugby title in 2007 is not quite accurate, because they only lost two of their first three games, and only one of those was at home. The Bulls seem to have forgotten the art of winning rugby games when you’re not playing well and coach Frans Ludeke, no doubt feeling the pressure to keep his job, did not tip-toe around their performances in the first fortnight of SuperRugby.

“After two performances like that, you just have to keep quiet and fix it. There are no grey areas, we know what cost us. We have to be more accurate, we have to play with more urgency – we lost a lot of ball at the breakdowns simply because we didn’t have numbers there,” Ludeke said.

The weak refereeing of Andrew Lees at the breakdown certainly had a detrimental effect on the Bulls’ chances, but even there they have only themselves to blame.

Hurricanes coach Chris Boyd said they had “detected” that Lees “lets the contest go on much longer than most” at the breakdown, while the lack of urgency and support play the Bulls showed in getting to the rucks made their one-off ball-carriers easy prey.

The only positives for the Bulls were that flyhalf Handre Pollard had a threatening game with ball in hand and kicked well, Jesse Kriel had some nice runs from fullback, and Trevor Nyakane was solid at tighthead prop.

But it’s been two dismal weeks for the Bulls; the fire has just not been there. One would have expected there to have been a big step up in intensity after the Stormers upstaged them, but if anything, the Bulls were even worse against the Hurricanes.

http://citizen.co.za/331534/bulls-upbeat-despite-two-defeats/

Loftus Versfeld, where the home side did not lose a game last season, was in mourning last night as the Bulls recorded their second successive loss in front of their fans, going down 17-13 to the Hurricanes in their Vodacom SuperRugby match.

While last week’s defeat to the Stormers dinged the Bulls’ reputation as SuperRugby contenders, last night was nothing short of a car crash as they bumbled their way to another loss.

The Bulls will say decisions did not go their way and there’s no doubt incompetent Australian referee Andrew Lees or serial TMO offender Johan Greeff, who controversially denied a 77^th-minute try by Grant Hattingh, will not be receiving invitations to any of their weddings.

But if the Bulls were a car, they would splutter to a halt every five minutes, and their shortcomings in attack mean they never do enough with the ball they have.

The Hurricanes, flooding the breakdown from all angles, were allowed to give the Bulls a torrid time in the rucks – the home side’s failure to arrive in time not helping – and were in charge at the scrums for three-quarters of the game.

The Bulls had no reward for their early time in the Hurricanes’ 22, the visitors instead leading 6-0 through two Beauden Barrett penalties up to the 29^th minute.

Flyhalf Handre Pollard, the one threat with ball-in-hand for the Bulls, then kicked a penalty and sliced through for a try he converted to give them a 10-6 lead.

Two Barrett penalties either side of halftime put the Hurricanes back in front, before Pollard kicked a 52^nd-minute penalty (13-12).

Wing Julian Savea scored the match-winning try in the 67^th minute, breaking through two tackles from a tap penalty, but the Bulls spent the closing minutes on attack.

It would all end in tears for them, however, as Greeff ruled Hattingh had cut the touchline with his supporting hand while diving over to dot down.

Scorers

Bulls – Try: Handre Pollard. Conversion: Pollard. Penalties: Pollard (2).

Hurricanes – Try: Julian Savea. Penalties: Beauden Barrett (4).

The Unlimited Titans give their fans a hard time with their inconsistent performances, but when it really matters, they perform and Rob Walter, the coach of the newly-crowned Momentum One-Day Cup winners, says he wouldn’t want it any other way.

The Titans claimed the Momentum One-Day Cup title with an incredible win over the Nashua Cape Cobras in the final at Newlands at the weekend, pegging the home side back to 285 for eight after they were 170 without loss after 30 overs, and then chasing down the target, thanks to magnificent centuries from Dean Elgar and Albie Morkel, with 17 balls to spare despite being 60 for four in the 15^th over.

“It would be great to totally dominate finals and win, but as a coach you’d much rather see your team manage to find a way out of significant pressure as we did in both innings. It’s a sign of a good team, it shows we’re moving in the right direction and it shows great things about the team. We never gave up, we showed awesome character,” Walter told The Citizen on Monday.

It was the superb batting of Elgar and Morkel that pulled the Titans through when all looked lost and Walter was full of praise for the pair of experienced left-handers.

Full report – http://citizen.co.za/328149/titans-step-really-matters/

The DHL Stormers had their fans at Loftus Versfeld screaming with delight on Saturday night as they upset the Vodacom Bulls 29-17 for their first SuperRugby win in Pretoria since 2012.

While the small but noticeable group of Stormers supporters left Loftus thrilled by their underdogs pulling off a surprisingly convincing victory over the highly-rated Bulls, the home fans were left contemplating how, for all the talk of a new era, their team played much as they did last year. The Bulls were flat, did not make enough use of their possession, wasting a lot of it through basic errors, and their scrum was always under pressure.

In fact, it was even worse than last year because the Bulls were undefeated at home in the 2014 SuperRugby competition.

And it had all started so promisingly for the Bulls as wing Bjorn Basson came bursting through on a lovely switch, earning a fourth-minute penalty for offsides. The Bulls bravely kicked it to touch and their rolling maul steamrolled over the line, with flank Deon Stegmann getting the opening try.

And then fullback Jurgen Visser dropped a regulation kick ahead by Dillyn Leyds, which the Stormers wing picked up as he followed through, racing over the line for the visitors’ first try. From then on, the Bulls’ wheels began falling off.

Flyhalf Demetri Catrakilis kicked a penalty and then eighthman Duane Vermeulen came storming through on an angled run to score the second try, with centre Damian de Allende shaking off several defenders to make the try-scoring pass.

By now the Stormers were winning the scrum battle hands down and were defending with tremendous ferocity, while also carrying the ball with greater intensity than the home side.

Going into the break with a 5-17 deficit, the Bulls desperately needed to lift themselves in the second half and they played with greater accuracy and urgency in the third quarter.

Flyhalf Handre Pollard, having missed his first three kicks at goal in the first half, succeeded with a 42^nd-minute penalty after strong runs by eighthman Pierre Spies and lock Jacques du Plessis.

Pollard registered further penalties in the 48^th (after Basson claimed a fine take in the air), 54^thand 60^th minutes, while Catrakilis kept his perfect record intact with a 51^st-minute penalty.

But the shaky foundation at the scrum and the tremendous Stormers defence meant that the Bulls were often running up blind alleys and the visitors finished the match strongly.

De Allende, a shining light in the Stormers backline, almost scored but was forced out on the corner flag by Jan Serfontein and Pollard, but it still led to another penalty for Catrakilis (23-17).

His replacement, Kurt Coleman, slotted a penalty in the 73^rd minute as another Bulls scrum came crashing down, and then a drop goal two minutes from time, widened the wound for the Bulls into a gaping gash.

For all their talk about raising the tempo of their play, there still seemed to be too many Bulls carthorses in comparison to the livewire, all-action Stormers.

The decision to sign tighthead prop Vincent Koch on a loan deal from the Pumas looks a masterstroke as he gave the Stormers scrum a tremendous foundation, as well as being a force in the loose.

Locks Ruan Botha and Jean Kleyn also looked full of promise and there are plenty of promising signs for the Stormers for the season ahead.

Scorers

Bulls: Try – Deon Stegmann. Penalties – Handre Pollard (4).

Stormers: Tries – Dillyn Leyds, Duane Vermeulen. Conversions – Demetri Catrakilis (2). Penalties – Catrakilis (3), Kurt Coleman. Drop goal – Coleman

http://citizen.co.za/327043/bulls-vs-stormers-low/