Cape Town - It was a memorable run to the final last season, but suddenly the Bulls are between a rock and a hard place in the United Rugby Championship.
They made a three-out-of-three winning start this season, but two consecutive defeats – to Glasgow Warriors and then the 31-17 bonus point loss to Munster on Saturday – has heaped pressure on coach Jake White and his team.
Now they are facing yet another tricky encounter, against Benetton in Treviso on Friday – where they were thrashed 35-8 in the Rainbow Cup final in their last visit to the Stadio Monigo in June last year.
The Pretoria-based team had a tough time of it at Thomond Park, with the rain and wind, their own unforced errors on attack, lineout woes and a streetwise Munster pack resulted in a bonus-point victory for the home side.
Young hooker Jan-Hendrik Wessels battled with his lineout throwing once again, the forwards were beaten in the breakdown battle, and half-backs Johan Goosen and Embrose Papier didn’t offer much direction to the backline either.
Fullback Kurt-Lee Arendse was one of the few standouts – he was always a threat with ball-in-hand and claimed the high-ball with aplomb.
“To be fair, that’s what we have. It’s not an international side where you can change. You basically have what you have – and they’ve got to grow. You could play Bismarck du Plessis in the beginning of a
game and take Jan-Hendrik out of that game, but what does he learn? Absolutely nothing. What does Wandi (Simelane) learn, unless he is under pressure in Munster, with up-and-unders coming towards him,” White said.
“I want you guys to understand: it’s not the end of the world. This time last year, we were in the same boat. Touring is very difficult. Ulster came very close to losing to the Lions at Ellis Park today, and Sharks won easily against Glasgow.
“So, the home and away records are (very) much in favour of the home teams.
“We’ve got a lot of home games, and we won an away game already against the Lions – and you see how important that Lions game was, considering how good they are at home now as well.
“I don’t think it’s selection. The reality is that they’ve got to learn – I can’t hide them. I’ve got to put them in pressure situations, and all the youngsters have to grow in these situations. And I know that over time, they will all get better.”
Now the Bulls have to engineer a turnaround within six days if they want to avoid a third consecutive defeat, and they might have to take on Benetton without Goosen (concussion) and Cornal Hendricks (groin), who didn’t come out for the second half in Limerick.
“Selections this week will be important. We will have to look at the injuries – a guy like Goosen, if he’s not available, obviously can’t play. Then obviously Chris and Morne (Steyn) will be involved in the No 10 jersey,” White said.
“But what’s important now is that it’s not just hit and miss every week. It’s about understanding that this competition is a long tournament. We’ve just got to be alive at the backend of the competition, and then anything’s possible.
“And we’ve got to play our best rugby at the back-end of the competition, like we did last year.
It’s about being balanced in the way you are as a coach, and balanced as a group, and just making sure that whatever we can (do), is to give ourselves a fair chance to win on Friday.
“That means how we prepare, how we look after each other, how we train, the selections we are going to make, and just keep staying positive – that’s important.
“The only thing we’ve got to do now is just be positive. We’ve been to Benetton and we lost there in the Rainbow Cup final – with a very good bunch of Italian players who play for the national side.
“I see they were on the receiving end of a bad loss to Edinburgh, so I have no doubt that they will be working hard this week.
“So, we’ve just got to make sure that we get there and we start preparing as well as we can for Friday night, because it’s a really short turnaround as well.”
@ashfakmohamed