REACTION: Bulls Director of Rugby Jake White expressed his satisfaction with his side’s 22-16 victory over Edinburgh at Loftus Versfeld in the United Rugby Championship.
The Bulls struggled in the set pieces, particularly in the scrums after the late withdrawal of tighthead prop Wilco Louw who was replaced by Francois Klopper that got promoted from the bench and Mornay Smith coming into the side as a front-row replacement for Klopper.
White, however feels there’s no reason for panic and that it’s areas his side can fix as the season progresses.
“It’s things we can fix, that’s what I basically think, we’ve generally been good at that [scrums and lineouts], we didn’t get any rhythm or momentum there as well so it’s something we’re going to have to look at but we can fix it.”
White added: “We struggled to beat Edinburgh in the last three years, it’s been tough games against them,”
“We lost twice there and we only just won here at home, they’ve got incredible players that go hard at the ball so you don’t get any rhythm, and when your lineout and scrum don’t function, it gets even slower, but we’ll take the win.”
White praised his side for their defensive heroics, especially when the Bulls were under pressure as Edinburgh came close to scoring inside the Bulls’ 22 metre area but couldn’t convert the territory into points.
“Defensively I thought we were outstanding, when we had 14 guys we kept them out and got a turnover, and from that turnover we kicked a 50/22, took a quick lineout and scored.”
White also felt that the win was important and that it was a good test for his charges who are currently operating without some Test players as well as those on the sideline with injury.
“There’s a lot of things we could’ve done right but I think the bottom line is we wanted to get a win, especially now there’s nine Springboks not here, got a couple of injuries,” White said.
He added: “It’s a test for us as a group, and you can imagine the mood in the changeroom is positive, they know the things that we got wrong we can get right and the things we did well, are going to make us build to be a stronger team so it’s always nice to learn lessons when you’ve won”.
Flank Jannes Kirstin scored the first try for the hosts and almost immediately went limping off.
White gave an update on the loose forward’s current state.
“He just hurt his hamstring, I’m not going to tell you he’s not injured, he just basically said he felt it was a bit tight and we decided that we’ll leave him off, we won’t risk him, it’s a long season and we had cover on the bench with Marcell [Coetzee].”
White didn’t just take lessons from his own side, but referred to last weekend’s Currie Cup Final drama and what the Bulls’ attitude were to not go for the bonus-point and just take the win.
“Some would question why we didn’t go for the bonus-point at the end when we had that lineout,” White said.
He added: “I think you’ll recall last week in the Currie Cup Final, the Lions turned over a maul lineout and ended up losing the game, so the lessons learned there is take the four points, let’s not get arrogant, it’s a long season.”
White is also banking on his Springboks to return to bolster his current squad’s quality and depth and expose some of the rookies to play with the veterans.
“Next week hopefully after all the Test matches we’ll get some of our Springboks back and then we can put them together with some of the young talent we blooded and hopefully build on that in the next couple of weeks.”
