Cape Town – Bulls coach Jake White was clear in praising the Stormers for not panicking under pressure, but questioned some of the decisions by the match officials in Saturday’s 33-21 United Rugby Championship quarter-final defeat.
A crowd of over 44 000 at a pumping Cape Town Stadium played their part too in helping energise captain Steven Kitshoff and his Stormers team as the defending champions raced into a 17-0 first-half lead.
In contrast, the Bulls lacked the necessary vigour and execution to trouble the home side, while the pre-match withdrawal of Springbok star Canan Moodie to a hamstring injury and fullback Johan Goosen’s departure (concussion) early in the second half made life even more difficult for the visitors.
“You’ve got to be a bit humble – I think the Stormers played really well tonight. They are champions and have an incredible record at home. They are not the champions of the URC for nothing: 10 Springboks. I just said to the players that we would’ve had to play really well tonight, put them under pressure and get them to panic a little bit for us to have won this game,” White said in the post-match press conference on Saturday night.
“Credit to them: they didn’t panic. They got a good start. To be 17-0 down to a team that’s won the championship, not many teams in this comp in Cape Town would come back and win that game.
“But three tries and 21 points, with the amount of ball we had and territory we had, I’ve got to be proud of the way that the players stuck to it. The way they fought in the game… As coaches, you always measure those sorts of things because we could’ve quite easily just lay down and died – and got given a 30-pointer or 40-point drubbing.
“To lose Canan and then Goosen, those are two Springboks who have X-factor…. For us, we are probably not in the fortunate situation like other teams to have as many as the other franchises with those kinds of players at our disposal.”
White was not happy about the yellow card handed out to Bulls flank Cyle Brink for pushing Stormers No 7 Hacjivah Dayimani a few metres from the tryline, stating that a similar incident that saw scrumhalf Keagan Johannes tackled before he touched the ball in the opposition 22.
Then there were a number of tight calls from referee Jaco Peyper and TMO Marius Jonker that went against the Pretoria side as well.
“Someone whacked him (Goosen) on the head in a tackle. A couple of those head-to-head clashes tonight which no one saw… I watched a Test match where some of those tackles, you get red-carded. And tonight, best referee, best TMO in South Africa, nothing wrong,” White said.
#Bulls coach Jake White on reacts to refereeing decisions in their #URC clash against the #Stormers.
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“I am not going to give you the whole run-down, but a lot of work goes into preparing video clips of things, and the answers are that it (particular plays) won’t be allowed – and then you see the same pictures in a game, and it is allowed.
“One thing that we are going to have to work out is how can we, through the URC, find a way to get (decisions to be consistent).
“I’ve heard that there is zero tolerance on hands past the ball on the ground, but it didn’t look like that tonight. I heard that if you sack a maul, and it’s a tackle, you can’t lie on top of (an opposition player). But that didn’t happen tonight either.
“But to be fair, that’s what the Stormers do well: you’ve got to adapt to that. They are very good at it. Tonight for argument’s sake, one of the things that they did really well is that they play the support runner in the breakdowns, and then got over the ball – and never once got penalised for taking out the support runner without the ball.
“But credit to them. They obviously worked very hard on the breakdown, and it works for them. They’ve got a good set-piece, and defend well.
“So, if I analyse the game, it’s funny how we went 7-0 down and I actually said, ‘I don’t want the ref to give a penalty at scrum-time when someone slips’ – and then we were 10-0 down.
“When you are 10-0 down against the Stormers, it’s incredible because you have to chase the game. Their defence is so good that once you have to start chasing the game, you must put yourself under pressure.
“I repeat what I’m saying: we need to find a way (to address the inconsistency in decisions). We spend a lot of time – and Rassie (Erasmus) taught you this many months ago – putting videos together and asking about it, and then you see the pictures and then you don’t get any joy from the same pictures.
“That’s all I’m (asking for). I’ve got a lock playing (Charlie Ewels) against the Sharks for the Bulls tonight who got a red card in a Test match for exactly the same tackle that I saw tonight in this game.”
Asked if he shouldn’t perhaps post his ref videos on social media, White smiled and said: “I am not on social media! I’ve got enough problems without having to go on social media…”
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