One eighty for brilliant Bulls
15 Mar 2010
The Bulls’ defeat to the Hurricanes two years ago was the nadir of a disastrous title defence. Now this is a side unrecognisable from that diabolical unit.
The Bulls, fielding 11 Springboks in their run-on 15, took 50 from the Hurricanes in that match. It completed a series of six defeats on the bounce. In that run of losses, the Reds and Chiefs put 40 points past them, while they also lost to the Force. In fact, they had won just two of their 10 games up to and including the Canes match, with one of those victories coming against the tournament’s perennial whipping boys, the Lions.
The defending champions, so prolific a year earlier, were in crisis. They blamed the ELVs, which had been introduced in an attempt to encourage a more fluent, entertaining spectacle. They intimated that referees were against them and gradually became cold and bitter towards the sectors of the media who criticised them.
Privately their senior players pined for their mentor and former coach Heyneke Meyer. Comparisons between Meyer and his successor, Frans Ludeke, were unfavourable to the latter. Tactically and from a man-management perspective, Ludeke paled in comparison to his predecessor.
Then there was the absence of their talismanic captain Victor Matfield, who had been lured to Toulon. The appeal of a new challenge and being paid a vault to scrap in the French D2, was enough for Matfield to bid the Bulls adieu. He wouldn’t have predicted the dramatic capitulation that followed his departure.
Fourie du Preez was a reluctant captain. The role wasn’t a fit with him at all, despite the fact that he is widely acknowledged as one of the brightest rugby minds on the planet and a capable leader of men. Still, where some shine with the responsibility of leadership, others, like Du Preez feel shackled.
There was little to no willingness amongst the players and coaching staff to take responsibility for the dire situation they found themselves in. That was until a post-Hurricanes team talk, where senior players spoke openly about the issues that vexed them, the opinions of the younger players were taken into account and the coaching staff admitted their errors and limitations.
There was a collective commitment to improve, and they have done so in emphatic fashion.
Since that game the Bulls have won 17 of 20 matches (they haven’t been beaten at Loftus in 14 matches), and captured another Super Rugby title to go with their 2007 triumph. The turnaround is phenomenal and the Canes will be acutely aware that where they faced a fatally wounded beast on April 12 2008, they now front up to one of formidable prowess.
A shift in attitude and mindset and improved tactics are among the reasons for their resurgence, and to overlook the return of Matfield, a galvanising force and astute leader, would be foolish.
The emergence of and subsequent acclimatisation of gifted youngsters like Dewald Potgieter, Deon Stegmann and Francois Hougaard, and more recently Gerhard van den Heever and Flip van der Merwe has injected quality and freshness into the squad, and inadvertently served to be a catalyst for the senior players in those positions to raise the standard of their performance, thereby raising the collective standard. Meyer’s recruitment in the capacity of director of rugby was also a masterstroke, and should ensure sustained success.
But most of all it’s been the utter refusal to believe that they’ve touched the ceiling of their potential, or indeed that their potential has a ceiling, that has, to date, shielded the Bulls from complacency and made them the one of the finest teams on the planet.
The Bulls will face one of the toughest tests of the campaign in the Canes. But a victory will be particularly sweet as the match represents the point in which they went from chumps to champs.
By Ryan Vrede
170 Comments
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15 Mar 2010, 13:03 pm
@skopskiet: @Tacitus: Let’s keep perspective gentlemen. Watch the try again, v/d Heever had only to beat 3 defenders and 2 of those were forwards. Vanikolo at first did not chase hard because he figured his teammates would be able to stop “hurdles” only after realising that his teammates were all forward players (no. 3 & 7 if not mistaken) did he put up a chase.
So.. the jury is still out on “hurdles” TAC.
15 Mar 2010, 13:08 pm
@Transformation:
I re-watched that try and Morne Steyn was keeping up with Dagg on the inside. Don’t think he or Dippenaar are that fast at all. Decent journeyman pace.
@theOracle:
He stepped Vanikolo right in the beginning of his run.
15 Mar 2010, 13:37 pm
@Kobus Kitty: Oh dear KK, you really are retching.
From Lions to Bulls and now on the Stormer gravy train. They say women are fickle.
15 Mar 2010, 13:42 pm
@Kobus Kitty: izzy blitzed that boy man…morne, come now?
15 Mar 2010, 13:58 pm
@Blouste: 35
I have not watch the match or see that try yet, but the distance covered by v/d Heever has now increased from 70-80m according to some newspaper reports to 90 odd meters.
By the end of the week it will probably be 110 meters.
15 Mar 2010, 14:13 pm
@nama1: I have watched it a couple of times and saying he ran 90 metres is stretching the truth.
He actually started his run from row Z in the stand behind his tryline, stepped the security guard, beat the ball boy for pace, and then beat 19 Highlanders to score under the posts while jumping over the rugby posts, getting the conversion out of the way before scoring the try.
15 Mar 2010, 14:29 pm
@nama1: With all the zigging and zagging, hurdling over players, it could have been 110m. It was flash.
15 Mar 2010, 14:47 pm
@WOLFMAN21:@RugbyRulz:
15 Mar 2010, 14:49 pm
@WOLFMAN21:
he even caught the conversion which Morne slotted, this from standing at the half way line…
15 Mar 2010, 14:55 pm
@Transformation:
I have watched the footage more than once, while you obviously have not. Morne Steyn was right next to him on the inside.
It wasn’t mind boggling pace. You watch Habana vs Australia in Perth 2005, both of his tries he was running at incredible speed.
@RugbyRulz:
How about ‘dem Aussie teams in the top 4? Oh wait….
At least some of us have a train to get on.
15 Mar 2010, 15:01 pm
@Kobus Kitty: no one remember the penalty that was not called before the try was scored? and was it 4 Saffa refs?
payback from Kaplan?
15 Mar 2010, 15:04 pm
@poppa69: Do you actually watch rugby to enjoy it, or are you to busy trying to conjure up alleged errors by the ref?
15 Mar 2010, 15:11 pm
@Kobus Kitty: The Aussie teams are certainly not in the top 4 and don’t think any will win this year. I can live with 3 teams doing ok. 3 Middle order batsmen will do fine come the business end of the year.
15 Mar 2010, 15:14 pm
@poppa69: 161 Don’t go near the refs please, they’re sacrosanct. If you read what Stephen Jones has to say (and other Journos) about Plonker then the entire SA reffing board would come tumbling down.
Plonker = Jonker
15 Mar 2010, 15:17 pm
@WOLFMAN21: alleged
just having a laugh, and of course I watch rugby to enjoy it…I watched every game this last weekend…
15 Mar 2010, 15:48 pm
@poppa69: It was a pretty good weekend of rugby. I find it fair more interesting focusing on the players rather than the ref!
I can’t stand it when people blame it on the ref, and moan about “ANZAC conspiracies”. John Smit would have been better suited focusing on his scrumming last week, rather than moaning about the ref.
15 Mar 2010, 16:36 pm
I reserve judgement re: Bulls and Stormers until they’ve returned from their respective tours…
15 Mar 2010, 16:42 pm
@brains_trust: 167. Yup. They both have very similar starts to the S14 that the Sharks had last few years. Only for the Sharks to run out of steam in the business end of the tournament.
The Bulls have done it. The Stormers – for all the talk and promise – when was the last time they were in a S14 semifinal?
15 Mar 2010, 16:44 pm
@brains_trust: Good call my son, but the thing is a team needs around 42 points to Q for the semis. We already have 20 after 4. So we have 50% of the points after 30% of the competition.
The maths point to another home semi I am afraid kid.
16 Mar 2010, 00:49 am
@RugbyRulz:
I suppose you think Stuart Dickinson and Paul Marks are better? South Africa has the top refs, almost everyone openly admits that.
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