Bok veterans must inspire Bulls against All Blacks

The Bulls supporters must appreciate realism over romance in Saturday’s match against the All Blacks.

Bulls v All Blacks

Willie le Roux and captain Marcell Coetzee will lace the boots for one final international opponent, but outside of them this is a very different Bulls match 23 that made it to last season’s United Rugby Championship final against Leinster in Dublin.

Realism beats romance on this one.

And the realism is this is not the Bulls United Rugby Championship finalists and this is not the All Blacks who whipped Ireland 40-21 in the Nations Championship in July.

The two teams meet at Loftus on Saturday in the third match of Rugby’s Greatest Rivalry Tour, but it is very much a sideshow to make up time, add to the commercial revenue and give the broadcaster another match.

The reality is Rugby’s Greatest Rivalry is the three Tests in South Africa between the Springboks and All Blacks, and a fourth in succession, played in Baltimore, USA.

If one thinks of the series in South Africa, then it is the three Tests at Ellis Park, DHL Stadium in Cape Town and FNB Stadium in Soweto. All three are sell-outs.

Remarkably, 47 000 paid for the tour opener in Cape Town a week ago. The Stormers were heroic in matching the All Blacks for 65 minutes before the visitors pulled away in the final quarter.

In Durban, an inexperienced and youthful Sharks effort lasted 25 minutes before the black cloud broke and added to a dark night for the hosts. The All Blacks won 54-0.

At Loftus, it won’t be as one-sided. The Bulls have picked a match 23 considerably more competitive than Tuesday’s Sharks, and the All Blacks have selected a match 23 not as strong as the one that never needed to get out of first gear to make it two wins from two starts in South Africa.

Weather conditions are good for Saturday and the match will be easy on the eye. The Bulls like to play and they scored the most tries in last season’s URC.

But this is not the Bulls from the final against Leinster. The name is the same, the jersey will look familiar and it is the same coaching staff, but just seven of the URC final starting XV will be first out of the tunnel on Saturday.

Originally, just nine from the match 23 will play and the URC final’s eight-strong substitute’s bench is completely overhauled.

What changed in the past 24 hours is that Springboks Johan Grobbelaar (hooke) and Elrigh Louw (loose-forward) were released from the national squad to get game time against the All Blacks.

They were included as substitutes and will play the second half, possibly being introduced earlier if there is an injury.

The pity of these matches is that the Stormers, Sharks and Bulls ordinarily would have made for a contest, but not under these circumstances, as none of the current 41-man Bok squad has played against the tourists in the past fortnight.

The Stormers veteran flanker Deon Fourie was outstanding for 62 minutes against the All Blacks and his effort won him a recall to the Boks one month shy of his 40^th birthday.

Fourie’s last Test match was in the 2023 World Cup final against the All Blacks in France.

The Bulls URC survivors are Willie le Roux, Harold Vorster, Stravino Jacobs, Embrose Papier, captain Marcell Coetzee, Ruan Vermaak and Francois Klopper. And belatedly Grobbelaar and Louw.

Stedman Gans and Jeandré Rudolph have been promoted from the Dublin bench, which means nine of Saturday’s starting XV were involved in the final match 23.

Think who the Bulls are without from the URC final: Kurt-Lee Arendse, Canan Moodie, Handré Pollard, Cameron Hanekom, Ruan Nortjé, Gerhard Steenekamp, Marco van Staden, Jan-Hendrik Wessels, Wilco Louw, Cobus Wiese, Zak Burger and Nizaam Carr. Only Burger is not a Springbok.

Klopper survives from the starting front row in Dublin, Vermaak remains from the starting second row and Coetzee is the only retained member of the starting loose trio.

The All Blacks’ selections across the three franchise matches provide equally important context.

The All Blacks selected 41 players across the three tour matches.

Only two have been included in all three match 23s. Scrumhalves Cortez Ratima and Kyle Preston are asked to back each other up in the absence, due to injury, of the first-choice scrumhalf Cam Roigard.

The match 23s have differed big time in all three matches, with 16 changes the norm.

Loftus on Saturday is not a Test series dress rehearsal, but a necessary evil to make the tour happen.

The Bulls famously beat the All Blacks 29-27 the last time they met at Loftus in 1976.

If the Bulls had fielded a match 23 inclusive of their current Springboks, we’d be in for a treat and Loftus would have been sold out.

Loftus is not sold out and the Bulls don’t have any of their current Test Boks, so the treat will be of a different kind.

If you love rugby and are in the city, get there, but don’t go there with an expectation based on ignorance when it comes to the match-day make-up of the two teams.

Rugby’s Greatest Rivalry starts in Johannesburg in a week; not in Pretoria on Saturday.

Mark Keohane’s Keo Uncut rugby columns on Times Live