Bulls just getting better
1 Mar 2010
An injection of youth has allowed the Bulls to soar instead of stagnate, writes Keo in his weekly Business Day column.
The Sharks are sinking and the Bulls are on a stampede, with the former terribly out of sorts and showing no sign that the view will get any better.
The Lions, given another year’s grace in that they don’t have to win anything, continue to leak tries and for the second successive match gifted the opposition a four-try bonus point, and the Cheetahs again confirmed their inability to put together two winning weekends in succession.
The Stormers were simply the Stormers. If they were red hot a week ago against the Waratahs then they were the opposite against the Brumbies, who weren’t much better. A draw would have been the fairest reflection, although the defeat means no player in Cape Town should believe his hype. Not just yet anyway.
The Bulls will have more difficult nights on the road, when they have to battle without the delights of the most fanatical home support in the competition and the magic wand called altitude.
But they will win more away from their Pretoria fortress than they will lose if they continue to embrace the most complete game in the competition. There were moments against the Waratahs when they were sublime. What they lacked in the first half was accuracy because the intent to play with intensity and width was a presence throughout. That the Waratahs attitude was as positive made for the weekend’s best match – something you would associate with the Bulls in the first three rounds of the competition.
The usual individuals continue to give world-class performances, but the biggest beneficiary of the Bulls this season is inside centre Wynand Olivier, whose attacking lines are starting to match his ruthless defence. Olivier destroyed the Waratahs midfield and the momentum he gave the Bulls compensated for their first half lack of dominance at the breakdown. This was largely due to the combination of loose forwards that started the match and when Potgieter and Stegman entered the festivities in the second half, all that was festive ended for the visitors.
Olivier now has the edge on Springbok inside centre regular Jean de Villiers, whose season with Munster has been difficult enough without Olivier torturing the best midfields in the southern hemisphere.
It is the composition of the Bulls team that has been as appealing as their results, with coach Frans Ludeke trusting youth to add a dimension to a Bulls team that could easily have stagnated. Instead they are soaring.
Every neutral would want to watch the Bulls play at the moment. They play intelligently, always back themselves to score tries as well as force penalties and they aren’t afraid to move the ball if it is on. Their counter attacks are clinical and there is nothing frantic about the way they use the ball. That is the major difference between Bulls and Lions at present. The Lions run with hope and the Bulls do so with purpose. The Lions say they want to entertain and the Bulls say they want to win.
Just what the Sharks want to achieve in terms of game plan is a mystery only eclipsed by the signing of England reject flyhalf Andy Goode. Why not play a local lad, ala the Bulls? Why not play Guy Cronje, so highly rated yet so sparsely used.
Questions are rightfully being asked of the Sharks because nothing can justify why a starting team with 11 Springboks and led by the country’s most successful captain can’t fashion a win.
The coach John Plumtree does not become a poor coach in three weeks and the players are among the best in the competition, so something else has to be wrong. I have heard all sorts of rumours from within Kwazulu-Natal, but in the early stages of the competition refused to give them merit. Now the talk of a split camp is becoming more believable, as is the whisper that Plumtree has lost the support of a faction within the squad and the administration.
The Sharks, as against the Chiefs and Cheetahs, were diabolical and in 240 minutes have produced one five pointer, while conceding seven. There has to be accountability and consequence if the franchise with the biggest chequebook offers a one try and no win return in the first three weeks of a competition, in which there is rightly so much expected from them.
206 Comments
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1 Mar 2010, 21:08 pm
@Tacitus: Post 101 – Oh jees! Not another one! Next thing I will be ROFL-ing. Maybe it’s the Alcohol, but this blog is very funny tonight.
1 Mar 2010, 21:12 pm
@Croc: I can’t take credit for that. Old Tackles leaves it out there like low-hanging fruit. I just happened upon it.
1 Mar 2010, 21:21 pm
@katman: He did set himself up, but it still takes a certain level of sharpness to capitalise on the opportunity. He was probably so chuffed about getting the first post in and making a sarky comment, and then you went and fuxed it up for him
1 Mar 2010, 21:29 pm
Re Tacitus’ post about Bobby Skinstad and Matthew Pearces’ commentary – In Pearces’ favour, when Morne Steyn kicked his lucky packet, snot-nose, prima donna, f’ckadilly (insert favourite Skopskietism here) to sink Western Province in the CC semi-final, he showed appropriate levels of excitement and kept his disappointment to himself.
1 Mar 2010, 23:11 pm
@Tacitus: 111 yeah bladen is the most impartial since Bill McLaren, wish he could commentate on a few 6N games
@grant10: 172 sup tank
2 Mar 2010, 10:27 am
Getting Heynecke Meyer back to loftus was a masterstroke by the bulls management as it is basically his team before he went to leicester and now that he is back you can see the confidence in the bulls,he is to the bulls what Kitch Christie was to the springboks.Franz Ludeke has done an excellent job for the bulls in his absence(i was one of the anti FL brigade and i humbly eat humble pie on his appointment
as coach)but having HM back at loftus is the icing on the cake for the bulls.Another peice of good work was getting Gary Botha back as our first choice hooker has already made a big difference to the scrum werner kruger is alredy beniffiting from gary`s return and when bakkies returns and spies is fit our scrum as a unit is good enough to play for the boks as a unit.I mean no disrespect to derek, bandise, or chilliboy but gary is our best hooker.F VD MERWE has came on a lot since he joined the bulls and will continue to improve and with Juandre Kruger also coming back the bulls management are providing cover for VIC@BAKKIES when they retire.With youngsters dippenaar hougard and vd heever breaking through the future looks good for the bulls.There has been posts saying the bulls will win every super14 game this year i sincerely hope they do but i do no think that is possible with the logistics of the competition not even the great crusaders teams of the past managed that,but here`s to the bulls and i hope they win the super14 for a third time GO BULLS.
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