Cape Town – Jake White felt that while it was not the Bulls’ “greatest performance”, but now it will be much easier to look at where they went wrong following their 30-28 victory over the Lions at Loftus Versfeld on Saturday.
It would have been a very different outcome for the home side if replacement Lions flyhalf Jordan Hendrikse had converted a long-range penalty after the hooter, but it was not to be for the visitors in an exciting clash in Pretoria.
The Bulls moved into the top four of the United Rugby Championship log on 30 points, trailing Leinster (34), Benetton (32) and Glasgow (31) after nine matches, while the Lions inched up into 10th place on 24 with their losing bonus point.
The Johannesburg outfit motored into a 12-3 lead in the first half following a brace by hard-running captain and centre Marius Louw, but the Bulls managed to claw their way back through an Akker van der Merwe try and the boot of Johan Goosen.
The hosts took charge in the second half after absorbing the pressure from the Lions forwards, who dominated in the scrums, to lead 20-12 and then 27-18, but they battled to close out the win.
The Lions hit back through a Morgan Naudé try and an excellent long-range penalty by Jordan Hendrikse, but it was Bulls No 10 Goosen who had the last laugh as he banged over a penalty from inside the Bulls half with a minute to go.
Hendrikse, though, could have been the hero when he had an opportunity – also from the halfway line – to win it for the Lions after the hooted had sounded, but he sliced his effort to the right.
“There are a lot of learnings there – but a win is a win, and sometimes you need a bit of luck. Sometimes you need things to (go your way),” White said afterwards.
“Maybe a year ago, Hendrikse kicks that ball over and we lose that game. So, those are the margins, and sometimes you need a bit of luck. That could change the outcome of the rest of the season.
“Sometimes golfers don’t hit every green, but they are at the top of the leaderboard, and that’s similar to what we have had.
“That’s not our greatest performance, and we got the win. If Akker dummies Nohamba there, we get the four-try bonus point – that just shows you the margins of how quickly it can change. At that stage, it was 27-18, and it would have been game over.
“It is one of those outings where we weren’t on top of our game, but we got away with that.
“I also need to reiterate that a 21-year-old guy (Reinhard Ludwig) stole the lineout in the last play of the game. A 21-year-old guy (Cameron Hanekom) also made the mistake of carrying the ball through the line, and he will learn that that is not how you finish off a game.
“I am much more relieved. I am relieved after being 12-3 down, that we were leading at halftime as it could quite easily have gone the other way, and I am relieved that we could stay in the fight until the end there – even though we were probably lucky that he missed that kick.”
A controversial moment saw Bulls No 8 Mpilo Gumede charge over the line off a scrum, with referee Cwengile Jadezweni getting in the way and hampering Lions scrumhalf Morné van den Berg from tackling Gumede.
Jadezweni awarded the try despite the Lions’ unhappiness, but the visitors didn’t want to blame the match official for the defeat.
“It’s difficult. The ref also has to occupy space on the field. I think they capitalised well on that. If you look, New Zealand scored a very similar try – I don’t know exactly when it was. They played the inside ball, ran into the line of the ref, and they gave the try,” said skipper Louw.
“Sometimes it goes your way and sometimes it doesn’t. In hindsight, maybe if ‘Krappie’ (Van den Berg) made the tackle on the ref, he would’ve had to come back to that.
“But I think it’s just a defensive error from us, and I think we could’ve stopped that, to be honest.”
Lions coach Ivan van Rooyen added: “I’ve got to be very careful now! I don’t know what the solution is. You don’t want to break the ref, to be honest – if you hit him, he is going to blow the whistle. I don’t know... We will go and have a look at it.”
Points-Scorers
Bulls 30 – Tries: Akker van der Merwe, Embrose Papier, Mpilo Gumede. Conversions: Johan Goosen (3). Penalties: Goosen (3).
Lions 28 – Tries: Marius Louw (2), Morgan Naudé. Conversions: Sanele Nohamba (2). Drop goal: Nohamba (1). Penalties: Nohamba (1), Jordan Hendrikse (1).
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