The Bulls have opted to utilise a more transparent approach on-and-off-the-field this season, but will be shielding their players from public scrutiny ahead of Saturday’s United Rugby Championship (URC) showdown with the Stormers.
The Pretoria side initially decided yesterday to not hold any press conferences this week ahead of the Cape Town Stadium clash (7pm kick-off), which is in stark contrast to the way they have done things up to now.
The Bulls have provided excellent media access to their players this season, and Bulls director of rugby Jake White has also embraced that positive direction with his selections, rotating his side much more often – which he admitted recently wasn’t always the case in the past, much to the detriment of the team.
That has seen them win five out of seven URC games to earn third spot on the log, while sitting pretty in the Champions Cup, too. They were unlucky to go down 29-28 to Lyon in France last Saturday, where a largely second-string outfit were on the wrong end of a few controversial refereeing calls.
White will pick his strongest possible team this week, with Springbok stars such as Willie le Roux, Kurt-Lee Arendse and Canan Moodie sure to run out at Cape Town Stadium, in addition to other Bulls stalwarts who missed the trip to France, like No 8 Cameron Hanekom, flank Elrigh Louw and the front row of Gerhard Steenekamp, Akker van der Merwe and Wilco Louw.
Bulls fans would have loved to hear from some of their heroes this week, explaining how they will go about finally ending their hoodoo against the Stormers, who have won all six URC encounters between the two teams – the last one being last season’s 33-21 quarter-final result at the Cape Town Stadium.
Instead, after initially stating that there would not be any press conferences this week, the Bulls issued a media schedule late yesterday afternoon following a request from
White himself will take questions from the media this morning at Loftus Versfeld, and then again on Friday, when he will announce the Bulls team at their Cape Town hotel.
There was no Bulls press conference after the Lyon game due to “network issues” at Stade Gerland.
The Stormers hosted a press conference yesterday, with another scheduled for Friday with their team announcement.
But keeping the Bulls players away from media engagements this week just adds unnecessary pressure on the team, who will be desperate to make it a case of ‘lucky number seven’ on Saturday and break their duck against the Stormers.
What would have made a ‘media blackout’ even more puzzling is that the Bulls should have nothing to fear this weekend.
They have played superb rugby this season, have built incredible depth and have quality operators in the shape of Le Roux, Arendse, Moodie, Stedman Gans, David Kriel, Johan Goosen, Embrose Papier, Hanekom and Co who are all in outstanding form.
They showed their class by knocking over English champions Saracens 27-16 in the Champions Cup at Loftus Versfeld recently, where they played so well that they were disappointed to miss out on a four-try bonus point against Owen Farrell’s team.
In addition, the Stormers have been far off their best, losing four out of seven URC matches and battling with their lineouts in particular.
John Dobson’s team have shown encouraging signs in their last two games, though, nearly beating Leicester Tigers in England with an under-strength line-up and then toppling European champions La Rochelle 21-20 in Cape Town with a late Manie Libbok touchline conversion of AndréHugo Venter’s try.
But on current form, the Bulls are the favourites to triumph on Saturday in what would be an ideal Christmas present for White and their supporters.
The URC announced yesterday that South African official Marius van der Westhuizen will be the referee at Cape Town Stadium on Saturday. Marius Jonker will be the TMO, with Aimee Barrett-Theron and Griffin Colby the assistant referees.
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