Cape Town - Can the Bulls climb their Mount Everest?
They will come full circle when they take on Leinster in the United Rugby Championship (URC) semifinals in Dublin on Friday, having lost 31-3 to the Irish giants in their tournament opener last September.
Very few pundits will give the Pretoria-based team any chance of causing an upset at the RDS Arena, with the Bulls’ task not made any easier by a Friday game, despite having to travel, following their nail-biting 30-27 quarter-final victory over the Sharks at Loftus at the weekend.
The Stormers, who held off Edinburgh 28-17, will host Ulster in the second semi-final at Cape Town Stadium on Saturday.
Leinster sent an ominous warning that they are not going to relinquish their United Rugby Championship title easily as they thrashed Glasgow Warriors 76-14 in their quarterfinal, following the disappointment of losing the European Rugby Champions Cup final the previous weekend against La Rochelle.
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But that result actually gives Bulls coach Jake White some hope that his team can pull off a massive upset in Dublin.
“What I did see (in the Champions Cup final) is that Leinster is the one team that scores the most points in the first 20 minutes against everybody. I think what they (La Rochelle) did, through circumstances and Leinster’s errors, they sort of got to hold them to a reasonable score at halftime,” White said after the Sharks game.
“If you look at the clips, they got three or four opportunities where Leinster were coming at a hell of a speed towards the line, and just one or two bad options – and if they had scored there, they would go 21-0 up and it becomes very difficult to win.
“What I learnt is that Leinster are beatable – and that’s obviously confidence for us – and we can’t let them start well, because starting well is what they want to do and then you’ve got to play catch-up.”
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The Bulls director of rugby hailed his team for withstanding a late comeback from the Sharks, who were 27-13 down with 29 minutes to go and roared back to level the scores at 27-27 following Sikhumbuzo Notshe’s try.
After being under intense pressure inside their 22, the home team managed to earn a penalty and work their way upfield, and following a series of carries by the forwards, flyhalf Chris Smith slotted the winning drop-goal.
“They’ve (Sharks) got nine Springboks. The thing that we will have to learn is that there is no rocket science to the fact that when you are 14 points down, they are going to have a go at you – they are not going to kick it to the corner and walk to the lineouts, because they are going to run out of time,” White said.
Tambwe's pace 😱💨
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First try of the match goes to the Vodacom Bulls!
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“It’s one of those games that I knew was going to the wire. That’s how knockout rugby is going to be now … it takes little moments. Luckily, thankfully, we won most of those moments.
“This group of players have only been together for two years. It’s irrelevant how old they are – some of them are relatively young. We had two 19-year-olds in the match-23, and these guys are playing beyond their ages and beyond their time as a group together.
“Next week, we will get the ultimate test against Leinster, and sometimes their front row might have more international caps than our whole team together.
“I’m very proud of the fact that we’ve done what we’ve done, and we’ve probably achieved far beyond what people expected – and probably what our own players expected.
“But that’s the exciting thing about sport: we get a chance next week to measure ourselves against an international side that have dominated Europe, and whatever is going to happen, we will get a great feel for where we are as a group.”