Lacklustre Bulls grab bonus point

IF THE Bulls want to become serious contenders in the United Rugby Championship, they will have to find a way to bring some speed and accuracy into their play quickly.

That conclusion is based on the performance dished up in Friday night’s 33-19 Currie Cup victory over the Pumas at Mbombela Stadium.

While it may have been the opener for the premier domestic competition, it was the Bulls’ URC team in action in all but name. They were missing a few stalwarts, such as tighthead prop Mornay Smith, flyhalf Morné Steyn and perhaps outside centre Lionel Mapoe, who may get the nod for Saturday’s showdown with the Stormers at Loftus Versfeld.

But for the rest, it was a virtual fullstrength side that battled to find their rhythm on attack in particular against the Pumas.

Gert Smal’s team did well to eventually score their fourth try near the end to secure a bonus point, but the performance would not have impressed URC coach Jake White.

The Bulls seldom put any meaningful passages of phase-play together, and they failed to capitalise on attacking line-outs.

The Pumas were strong in defence and disrupted the Bulls when they were in possession, and the wet conditions further hampered the visitors’ handling.

But that kind of challenge is exactly what White would have wanted, as he made it known following the URC tour to Europe that he wants to see the Bulls playing ball-in-hand rugby in any kind of weather conditions.

He will hope that his first-choice side will eradicate those errors against the Stormers, who will be fresher after their coach, John Dobson, opted not to use Western Province’s clash against the Lions yesterday as a warm-up for the Stormers.

Bulls Currie Cup coach Smal is likely to utilise a younger group of players for Wednesday’s clash against WP at Newlands, and will be keen to see them take advantage of any front-foot ball in Cape Town.

Bulls captain Cornal Hendricks acknowledged the lack of cohesion on attack.

“It was tough conditions tonight. We always knew that it was going to be tough coming to Nelspruit (Mbombela), playing against the Pumas,” the No 12 said to Supersport in a post-match TV interview.

“But let’s give credit to the whole team… The synergy between the forwards and the backs was not that great, but credit to the forwards today for pulling us through tonight. Very proud.”

The one area that showed a marked improvement was the scrum, where loosehead prop Gerhard Steenekamp dominated Pumas’ tighthead Ig Prinsloo to earn several penalties.

Lock Ruan Nortje, who was a force in the tight-loose and scored a try, was chosen as the Man of the Match and expressed his delight with the scrum display.