Cape Town – Confidence is brewing in the Bulls camp, and that was part of the reason coach Jake White picked an unchanged team on Friday for Saturday’s United Rugby Championship clash against Leinster at Loftus Versfeld (4pm kickoff).
White stuck with the 23-man group that thrashed Zebre 78-12 in Pretoria last weekend, which sees Johan Goosen retained at flyhalf ahead of Chris Smith, and he feels that after the 10-game losing streak across all competitions recently, the Bulls have found their mojo.
It started with the 40-3 Currie Cup victory over Griquas a few weeks ago – where the URC team played – and then continued with the hard-fought 24-20 Currie Cup win over the Sharks in Durban last Friday before the runaway triumph over Zebre.
“Not just last week’s performance, but the team that went to Durban and won – that’s the first time we won a Currie Cup game in Durban since 2015, so a lot of confidence from that,” White said on Friday.
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“And the week before, we beat Griquas and because we hadn’t won (for a long time), we were desperate to win. And the way we played against Griquas and kept them tryless as well…
“So, I think the collective three-game process of getting stronger defensively, getting some winning momentum and then being as clinical as we were last week…
“If you’re 36-3 up at halftime, you can lose your shape in the second half and everybody can play like it’s trials. But I thought the way we kept our shape and were so clinical at the back-end of the game to score 78 points proved that we now understand the way we want to play.
“To score 11 tries, even though we were playing against a team that were weaker and had 14 men on the field (at one stage), you’ve still got to make sure that you hold onto the ball, be accurate and create pressure.”
Bulls team: 15 Kurt-Lee Arendse 14 Canan Moodie 13 Stedman Gans 12 Harold Vorster 11 David Kriel 10 Johan Goosen 9 Embrose Papier 8 Elrigh Louw 7 Cyle Brink 6 Marco van Staden 5 Ruan Nortjé (captain) 4 Ruan Vermaak 3 Mornay Smith 2 Johan Grobbelaar 1 Gerhard Steenekamp.
Bench: 16 Bismarck du Plessis 17 Dylan Smith 18 Francois Klopper 19 Janko Swanepoel 20 WJ Steenkamp 21 Keagan Johannes 22 Chris Smith 23 Cornal Hendricks.
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