Cape Town - Jake White says he will pick the “strongest, strongest, strongest, strongest, strongest team that I have” for the Bulls’ return Champions Cup clash against Exeter Chiefs, and that will be the case for Saturday’s United Rugby Championship encounter against the Stormers as well.
The Pretoria side’s fringe players slumped to a 44-14 loss to Exeter at a bitterly cold Sandy Park in England’s south-west, although they had a few scoring opportunities in the first half that could have made it a closer affair.
Hooker Bismarck du Plessis was denied a certain maul try in the first half when Exeter centre Solomone Kata came in from the side to smother the ball, but French referee Mathieu Raynal ignored that indiscretion and awarded a goal-line drop-out to the hosts.
A few minutes later, lock Reinhardt Ludwig was also held up over the line by what White said was a tackle from an Exeter player on the ground – who turned out to be Kata again – so both incidents should have resulted in penalty tries and yellow cards.
It was not to be, though, as the English club surged into a 32-7 halftime lead, with captain and hooker Luke Cowan-Dickie claiming a hat trick in the end.
But there are a number of players who have done well enough to impress White and be part of the squad that will face the Stormers, and the Bulls director of rugby still believes he made the right decision to rest his best players.
“I left 21 guys back home, and two guys that are injured, which makes it 23 who didn’t come on this tour. There will be a couple of guys, as we don’t have enough numbers to not involve some of these guys in the team. But 21 guys at home, so we need probably three or four from this team to get themselves ready for next week,” he said.
“I don’t have any regrets – what we had to do is what we had to do. Bismarck possibly could’ve scored there, Reinhardt Ludwig could’ve scored there and then it could’ve been completely different.
“But what I was most happy about is that in the first 30 minutes, we had enough chances to be in the game. From the 30th to the 40th minutes, they scored 16 points – it was 15-7 for such a long time, and we probably lost the game in the last 10 minutes of the first half. To be 32-7 down is a massive difference at halftime.
“But those are the decisions you have to make, and you can’t be regretful about the fact that there is a plan, and sometimes you lose a battle, but you end up winning the war – and that is basically where we are.”
The Bulls have been criticise in some quarters for sending a weakened squad without any current Springboks to England, but now they will hope to reap the benefits by fielding a fresh team at Cape Town Stadium on Friday night (7.15pm kickoff).
White reiterated his call for better travel plans and more top Boks to return to SA franchises to avoid that from happening in future.
“When you talk to teams coming to South Africa, they fly business class direct overnight from London or from Paris – as the Lyon side did the other night. That in itself is a massive advantage,” the former Bok coach said.
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“We’ve got to play the Stormers, who won the URC, next Friday night, and after this game, it’s back on the bus tomorrow for four hours, fly out of Heathrow on Sunday night, arrive midday on Monday… There is no way that any team can then be ready on a Friday – considering that we have to fly to Cape Town on the Thursday as well.
“I’m sure SA Rugby or the organisers have to look at ways in which they can make it a little more travel-friendly. For a two-metre guy to fly 21 hours via Doha economy class, and then sit on a bus for four hours from London Heathrow to Exeter is not really seen as high performance or for a team that wants to win the competition.
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“I want Jacques Vermeulen, Jannes Kirsten, Hanro Liebenberg, Malcolm Marx to come back to South Africa, and then I will prioritise both competitions. The youngsters are doing phenomenally well, but I need to blend them with a couple of guys between the ages of 25 and 30.
“Without saying one competition or another, long-term in my next five-year stint, I want to get some of these older guys back, target both competitions, blood these youngsters so that they can play with some really strong, senior, hardened professionals – then we can go for both.”
IOL Sport