Ken Borland

Western Province used their chances better and made fewer mistakes than the Blue Bulls as they beat the home side 23-18 in their Currie Cup semi-final at Loftus Versfeld in Pretoria.

The visitors scored the only two tries of the match thanks to the opportunistic nous, quick hands and feet of fullback Cheslin Kolbe, and it was a deserved victory as they dominated territory and their pack had the edge up front.

“We got off the canvas after taking sixty points up here in Johannesburg two weeks ago and having a horror half-hour against the Bulls when we last played them here, but that was an aberration and we deserved to win in the end. It was very frustrating at times because the Bulls defended well, but Cheslin is one of those slightly predatory players and in semi-finals those are the things that turn games,” Western Province coach John Dobson said after his team secured their place in a fourth successive Currie Cup final.

“They used their one opportunity and scored and from then on we were playing catch-up rugby, which causes you to make mistakes,” Blue Bulls coach Nollis Marais said. “But we should never have turned over the ball on attack. We should have played better, we made mistakes in the second half, we lost opportunities and a couple of calls went against us.”

Marais conceded that Western Province’s more experienced pack continued to have the edge over his young forwards.

“If you’re not getting your set-piece ball then you feel under attack and you lose confidence. We made too many mistakes so we weren’t as fluent as we wanted to be, and the Western Province defence got even better at the end,” he said.

Dobson gave credit to former Springbok Sevens coach Paul Treu for his side’s stout defensive work.

“In the last 10-15 minutes our defence closed the game, to not concede a try at Loftus Versfeld is a great achievement. Credit to Paul Treu for the work he has done; the defence really showed the character of the team,” Dobson said.

When the Blue Bulls hammered Western Province 47-29 at Loftus Versfeld nearly two months ago, they used a ball-in-hand approach, clever attacking innovations and pace and intensity, and coach Nollis Marais wants them to use the same strategy in their Currie Cup semi-final in Pretoria on Friday night.

“We wanted to do things differently, we weren’t looking at a semi-final or a final back then, we were just starting a new culture at the Blue Bulls. We’ve worked hard and now the guys must just play. They must believe in themselves and believe in what we do. They’ve all had a season behind them now and we’re good enough to beat any team. Being young is not an escape clause, the guys must just go out and play,” Marais said.

For Western Province coach John Dobson, the way the Bulls used the restart that day has been a major concern.

“We were beaten on the short kick-off down the middle. A couple of times we just weren’t watching and then it’s Game Over. There was just general sloppiness that day. We have to make sure we don’t get caught in the middle and when we receive the restart the clearance has got to be beyond our own 10m line or else the Bulls will just maul you.

“So we’ve had to change our strategy considerably, in terms of how we set up. We weren’t blocking properly, we were leaving Robert du Preez [flyhalf] stranded deep in the pocket. It was a massive issue for us and we had to change the plan,” Dobson said.

Western Province will no doubt want to use their powerful, more experienced pack to grind down the Bulls.

“Last time we played the Bulls [a 29-14 home win at Newlands a month ago] our pack was fairly well on top and if we can do that again then we are going to stop them from playing Bulls rugby, force them into a more open game, and then the mistakes are going to come and we can put pressure on them. Maybe we can force them to run when they don’t have numbers, we see opportunity in that,” Dobson said.

“That was probably our worst game of the season,” Marais said of the Cape Town loss, “because our set-pieces just didn’t work. So it was the first time we were really under pressure, but we still twice lost the ball over the tryline, so we were competitive. We’re better prepared up front than we were then.”

Despite the mounting pressure on them, the Bulls will remain faithful to the same plan they used in the opening two weeks of Vodacom SuperRugby when they take on the Sharks in a crunch local derby at Loftus Versfeld on Saturday.

“We believe what we are doing is right, we’re just not executing it well enough. Everybody can see where our mistakes are and we know that we haven’t performed as well as we can, not up to our standards,” captain Pierre Spies said.

The Bulls were just centimetres away – Grant Hattingh’s ‘try’ being disallowed by the TMO – from actually beating the Hurricanes last weekend and Spies believes this shows how close they are to turning their season around after opening with two defeats.

“It’s a game of inches and we need to keep perspective – if Grant had cut his fingernails the night before then we would have won and we wouldn’t be having this discussion, wouldn’t be looking at everything we’ve done wrong.

“We just have to graft it out, gel together and really stand up as a unit. We need to start converting pressure into points,” Spies said.

But it’s not just the Bulls’ results that have been disappointing: Against both the Stormers and the Hurricanes there was just no spark, no intensity, and a similar flatness against the Sharks will cost them dearly.

The Sharks responded to their opening defeat against the Cheetahs with a highly-impressive bonus-point win in sodden conditions over the Lions, a commanding performance in the scrum laying the platform.

The scrum has been a key area of concern for the Bulls so far this season, and if they don’t sort it out today, then it will surely also cost them dearly.

If the Sharks get front-foot ball then they can either attack through the middle with mobile, powerful ball-carrying forwards like Pieter-Steph du Toit, Marcell Coetzee and Ryan Kankowski, or they have finishing quality out wide in a backline that was superbly marshalled by Pat Lambie and Cobus Reinach against the Lions, and features pace on the wings in Lwazi Mvovo and Odwa Ndungane.

The return of Kankowski will also help the production of quality ball off the back of the lineout and it is in the set-pieces where the Bulls will find themselves under intense pressure.

“Obviously the Sharks have a very good set-piece set-up, we know they have a quality base there. So we need to make sure we put them under pressure there and make sure it’s a good base for us,” Spies said.

Under the circumstances currently at Loftus Versfeld, the words “misplaced optimism” spring to mind, but if the Bulls can regain the passion and pride that they normally possess at home, then they might just be able to dig themselves out of the hole they are currently in.

Teams

Bulls: 15-Jesse Kriel, 14-Bjorn Basson, 13-JJ Engelbrecht, 12-Jan Serfontein, 11-Francois Hougaard, 10-Handrè Pollard, 9-Rudy Paige, 8-Pierre Spies, 7-Lappies Labuschagne, 6-Deon Stegmann, 5-Victor Matfield, 4-Jacques du Plessis, 3-Trevor Nyakane, 2-Adriaan Strauss, 1-Mornè Mellet. Replacements – 16-Callie Visagie, 17-Dean Greyling, 18-Marcel van der Merwe, 19-Grant Hattingh, 20-Hanro Liebenberg, 21-Tian Schoeman, 22-Travis Ismaiel, 23-Jurgen Visser.

Sharks: 15-SP Marais, 14-Odwa Ndungane, 13-Waylon Murray, 12-Andre Esterhuizen, 11-Lwazi Mvovo, 10-Pat Lambie, 9-Cobus Reinach, 8-Ryan Kankowski, 7-Renaldo Bothma, 6-Marcell Coetzee, 5-Pieter-Steph du Toit,
4-Lubabalo Mtyanda, 3-Jannie du Plessis, 2-Bismarck du Plessis, 1-Dale Chadwick. Replacements – 16-Kyle Cooper, 17-Thomas du Toit, 18-Lourens Adriaanse, 19-Marco Wentzel, 20-Jean Deysel, 21-Conrad Hoffmann, 22-Fred Zeilinga/Lionel Cronje, 23-Jack Wilson.