Ken Borland

Nollis Marais was confirmed as the Bulls’ SuperRugby coach for the next four years over the weekend and he said he will continue with the enterprising new style of rugby he has introduced in the Currie Cup and which has taken the Blue Bulls to the brink of a home semi-final.

“Of course we will need to be more accurate in SuperRugby, but we’ll have more time to prepare than we did for the Currie Cup. We will change one or two things in the three months we have pre-season and there’s still a lot of improvement needed,” Marais said.

“It’s a huge surprise to be appointed because I only applied on the second-last day, but I’d like to thank my captain [Lappies Labuschagne] and the support of the fans and players because their backing is what got me appointed. I know there will be a lot of challenges and we have a lot to improve on for SuperRugby,” the 43-year-old said.

Bulls CEO Barend van Graan described Marais as “fearless” and a “straightshooter” who has “turned the tide at Loftus Versfeld”.

“He knows the players and understands them and they have adapted very well to his coaching style. The board and I have got a lot of faith in Nollis and that’s why we have given him a four-year contract. It gives him the opportunity to build,” Van Graan said.

Even though the Blue Bulls will go into the final round of league play in the Currie Cup with a firm hold on second place, four points ahead of Western Province, after their 48-27 win over the Eastern Province Kings at Loftus Versfeld, the match showed the improvement that is still needed by the young side if they are to be a force in Super Rugby.

The Kings went into half-time with a 20-17 lead having dominated the gain-line and been slick with ball-in-hand as they probed both the near and wide channels. The Bulls managed to up the intensity to produce an impressive second-half display, but the ability to play an 80-minute game still eludes them.

“The first half was a bit lacklustre, we made mistakes and they capitalised, and we only started to get momentum in the second half. The pattern needs to suit the players and we needed to play less expansively because we lost Deon Stegmann before the game and Jacques du Plessis had to move from lock to flank, when we wanted to play a quick game. We had to stick to playing the ball closer and not going wide and the best thing was the improvement in the driving maul. We put them under pressure with it in the second half and it paid off for us,” Marais said.

Keith Horne was 16-under-par after four rounds in the 60s and shooting 66 and 65 over the weekend in last year’s Africa Open, but that was only good enough for a tie for ninth, and the well-travelled South African believes he can improve on that when the 2015 edition of the co-sanctioned European/Sunshine Tour event gets underway at East London Golf Club on Thursday.

Horne has been a consistent performer in the Africa Open, finishing in ties for 18^th, 18^th, 21^st, 62^nd, 32^nd and ninth since the tournament moved to East London in 2009, but he is still heartsore over the 75s he shot in the final rounds of 2012 and 2013.

“I’ve played pretty well here before, I’ve been in contention but then I tend to have a bad round somewhere. I was in the top-10 last year, but I feel I haven’t reached my potential yet here because I feel very comfortable on the course,” Horne said at East London Golf Club on Wednesday.

Horne’s Africa Open performance was his best on the European Tour last year, and the 43-year-old admitted he was a bit jaded.

“After five years of playing in Europe and 13 years of travelling as a pro, I felt a bit flat so I didn’t play a full schedule last year. I took a large percentage of the year off and now I feel refreshed and ready, I’m a lot more relaxed,” Horne said.

The seven-time Sunshine Tour winner was born in Durban and grew up on the KwaZulu-Natal coast, so playing in the wind in East London holds no fears for him.

“I’m not as good in the wind as I used to be because I’ve lived in Joburg for the last 13 years, but I grew up on the coast and I have the technique and mind-set to play in the wind. It’s mostly about mental preparation, you can’t fight the wind, you’ve got to use it and accept it,” Horne said.

He has averaged 30.22 putts per round in 2015, putting him 140th in the European Tour rankings, but he is really looking forward to the greens in the Eastern Cape.

“I’m also used to the greens on the coast and the greens here are as good as any coastal greens I’ve seen. They’re the best they’ve been here for the last five or six years, so kudos to the green keeping staff, they’re in magnificent condition. They’re not as slow as they’ve been in the past, they’re rolling beautifully and I think a lot of putts are going to be made,” Horne said.

The father of two daughters will also be campaigning in Asia this year, having finished in 11th place in the Tour Qualifying School in Thailand in January.

“I’m going back, I had good seasons in Asia in 2009 and 2010 and I enjoy it there, more than Europe in fact. But the money’s in Europe … ,” Horne admitted.

The money’s also good in East London, with a prize pool of R14.5 million and a first prize of just over R2 million.

But the East London Golf Club course needs to be overcome first and, especially when the wind blows, it is a short course with many hidden dangers.

“East London seems to bring out the best in our golfers but you can go out and think you’re going to shoot very low, flopping wedges into all the greens, but the course has got teeth. There are birdies out there, but you have to keep double-bogeys off the card. If you take the course for granted, it can really bite you,” Horne said with the benefit of years of experience.

http://www.africaopengolf.com/PressReleases/2015/20-refreshed-horne-hunting-africa-open-glory.pdf

The bizhub Highveld Lions put in a stellar performance over the weekend in the Sunfoil Series and it was only the intervention of bad weather that prevented them from taking a near-unassailable lead at the top of the four-day competition’s log.

The wonderful efforts of their four-prong pace attack and centuries by the prolific Stephen Cook and Temba Bavuma gave the Lions firm control of their match against the Chevrolet Warriors in East London and, with Hardus Viljoen taking five wickets and Chris Morris three in the second innings, they were left with a victory target of just 98.

Unfortunately for the Lions, only 21 overs were able to be bowled before bad light stopped play with them on 81 for four.

“It was disappointing, I really thought we were going to get the win,” coach Geoff Toyana told The Citizen on Monday. “It was getting dark when we bowled the Warriors out, so we knew we wouldn’t get 33 overs in. The batsmen tried their best but Andrew Birch (9-3-13-4) bowled very well and made it tough for us.

“The Warriors were taking seven or eight minutes an over, but we still thought we’d get a couple more in.”

The Lions were also hindered by the Warriors tail, with the last three batsmen – Birch, Sisanda Magala and Basheer Walters  – adding 67 runs in 15 overs, but overall Toyana was happy as his team still sits 19.22 points ahead of the Titans on the log.

“The Dolphins were also very unfortunate to have to settle for a draw and these things happen, they’re not in your control. But I’m very happy that Hardus, Chris and Kagiso Rabada are all performing well together and Stephen Cook has now scored four hundreds in a row to put us where we are. He’s a quality opener, he’s batted there all his life, he knows his game and he’s been averaging over 40 for 10 seasons.

“The national selectors want to convert middle-order batsmen into openers, but I’m surprised Stephen hasn’t had a look in, he should be in the mix,” Toyana said.

The Unlimited Titans were also frustrated by the Nashua Cape Cobras’ tail in Paarl, the home side recovering from 198 for eight to 308 in their first innings and then bowling the visitors out for 175, thanks to Mthokozisi Shezi’s brilliant six for 51.

The Titans, set 475 to win after a quickfire Dane Vilas century, were eventually beaten by 170 runs, but the fact that the Lions were held to a draw meant they only lost a little ground on the log.

“We should have closed down their first innings quicker and you can’t really win after being 133 behind on first innings, unless something dramatic happens. But we got a bit lucky with the other two draws , which are pretty much worth the same as a loss.

“We’ve slipped back a bit, but not drastically, and if we can win two out of our last three games, and the Lions draw a couple, then we can win the title,” coach Rob Walter said.

Those who attended the final day of the match between the Sunfoil Dolphins and the Chevrolet Knights at Kingsmead enjoyed a nailbiting finish as the visitors’ last pair of Malusi Siboto and Quinton Friend survived for 53 minutes before bad light stopped play.

Paceman Mathew Pillans, with match figures of 10 for 129, and the Van Wyk brothers – Divan scored 171 and Morne 103 not out – were the stars of the show for the Dolphins.

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/