Ken Borland

Have opposing teams in the United Rugby Championship finally found ways of nullifying the physical threat posed by the Bulls, or are last season’s losing finalists just nowhere near their best at the moment?

This was the question dominating discussion among Bulls watchers as they slipped to successive defeats away to the Glasgow Warriors and Munster, sliding down to sixth place on the log before Friday’s night tricky fixture against Benetton in Treviso.

The answer, as it often is, is probably a bit of both.

Coach Jake White admitted this week that “for whatever reason, we have not played as well as we can. Sometimes it feels like we are stuck in third gear and we struggle to get into fifth.”

But he also made the salient point that it is still early days in the URC and the Bulls’ focus is on playing their best rugby in the last three weeks – the quarterfinals, semi-finals and final in May next year.

It is also worth noting his reminder that the Bulls were in a far worse position this time last season, winning just one of their first five matches. They were all away from home though, in an extremely tough draw, and the Bulls made it five losses from six games when they were then beaten by the Stormers at home. But in the end they still managed to make the final and, in fact, were only one win away from finishing second on the log.

But the Bulls have been exposed a bit in the physicality stakes, with both Glasgow and Munster dominating the collisions, as well as other aspects of play. It has long been accepted in rugby that games are won by the forwards and the backs decide by how much.

Although White bristles at suggestions that his team has been outmuscled, he has also been going on for the last two years at least about how young his squad is, which is a key factor.

Both the Glasgow and Munster packs were full of 30-year-olds who have been in the rugby trenches for a decade. They are mature men, experienced and streetwise.

There is a lovely word in Afrikaans that describes these yeoman forwards that every team needs to do the hard graft, the ugly work – these are the haardebaarde, literally translated as the ‘tough beards’.

White said he wanted more ‘menere’ in his team, saying the Bulls are currently “overloaded with juniors”.

As brilliant as they have been, Steenekamp, Wessels, Mornay Smith, Matanzima, Grobbelaar, Louw, Swanepoel, Nortje, Uys and Steenkamp are all no older than 25, and it should not be a surprise when wiser and more mature forwards get the better of them.

White has said that the age profile of the Bulls, but also the Lions and to some extent the Stormers, is wrong – they do not have enough of those middle-aged players between the ages of 27 and 30, when they are at their peak.

The blame for that can be laid on the economic situation of the country which has allowed overseas clubs to cause bad damage to our teams by taking advantage of the weakness of the Rand and cherry-picking the best talent.

The Sharks have managed to counter that talent-drain through equity partners and strong leadership at board level, while the Bulls are committed to a long-term plan of rebuilding their strength and are also benefiting from excellent investors and the great work of their CEO Edgar Rathbone and union president Willem Strauss.

One can only congratulate John Dobson and the Stormers for managing to get the absolute best out of their talent given the fact that the union was basically bankrupt, and it is going to be thrilling to watch the current Lions side grow and develop, given how well those youngsters are playing this season.

But imagine how much more depth all our sides would have if we could bring that 27-30 age cohort back to South Africa?

The Sharks scored five tries and contributed superbly to a dazzling game of rugby, but sadly their defence was found wanting and was nowhere near the quality of their attacking play, as Leinster thumped them 54-34 in their United Rugby Championship match in Dublin on Saturday evening.

A brilliant first half saw Leinster and the Sharks trade tries as the home side went into the break just 21-20 up. They were still just one point ahead as the hour mark loomed, a magnificent solo try by wing Thaakir Abrahams lifting the visitors back to 27-28.

But the Sharks unfortunately lost the plot in the final quarter as Leinster scored five tries to one in those 20 minutes. A game that had produced so much brilliant rugby sadly ended on a sour note as Sharks centre Rohan Janse van Rensburg was correctly red-carded for a wild tackle that saw his swinging arm hit opposite number Robbie Henshaw in the chin, sparking off a melee.

While the Sharks showed fantastic skill and imagination in attack, cutting Leinster open off lineout drives and scrums, their defence was consistently found wanting out wide, where Leinster found space through brilliant kicks or great handling.

Leinster flyhalf Jonny Sexton, or Sir Jonny as he is known in Dublin, pulled the strings superbly, his kicking being brilliant. He kicked seven out of eight conversions, which kept the hosts ahead on the leaderboard in the early stages, and his crosskicks were a real thorn in the Sharks’ flesh, with centres Henshaw and Charlie Ngatai also setting up tries from precise kick-passes.

The Sharks’ defence was again caught too narrow too often, and coach Sean Everitt will need to sort that out.

But he will be delighted with their wonderful attacking play, highlighted by the brace of tries scored by Abrahams. His second try, in the 55^th minute, was outrageous. He did well to claim a tricky, pressure high-ball, and then scampered away from a crowd of defenders, kicked ahead and then beat replacement wing Garry Ringrose to the touchdown.

Fullback Aphelele Fassi scored two tries as well, but had a mixed evening as he was a revolving door in defence at times.

Flank Dylan Richardson bossed the breakdowns, and the Sharks seemed to have the edge at scrum time, although there were precious few of those, which speaks to the quality of the game and how few handling errors there were.

Leinster’s forwards also carried superbly, and it was the attention they demanded from the Sharks defence which also contributed to the space out wide.

Scorers

Leinster: Tries – Jason Jenkins, Garry Ringrose (2), Andrew Porter, Robbie Henshaw, Rob Russell, Jonny Sexton, John McKee. Conversions – Sexton (7).

Sharks: Tries – Aphelele Fassi (2), Werner Kok, Thaakir Abrahams (2). Conversions – Boeta Chamberlain (2), Nevaldo Fleurs. Penalty – Chamberlain.