Bulls have ‘lost some of their identity’, laments Mitchell

John Mitchell may have based much of his previous success as a coach on attack, but he is adamant that his focus with the Bulls ahead of their match against the Jaguares in Pretoria this weekend is very much on fixing the porous defence that has dogged their Super Rugby campaign.

“I haven’t been happy with their last three games because our defence has been very average. We know we can attack, but our defence has got to improve big time, we are leaking far too many soft tries. Everyone knows how deep we are digging into our depth because of injuries, but you’ve still got a responsibility if selected for the Bulls to make your tackles.

“Attack looks nice but it comes and goes; if you’re going to win championships then you’ve got to hang your hat on your defence and we seem to have lost our identity a bit there. It’s about finishing the season with a performance like we had at the start – playing with intensity and accuracy,” Mitchell said on Tuesday.

As much as he will be inward looking, concentrating on what his team are doing without the ball, many of Mitchell’s schemes will revolve around nullifying the Jaguares’ strengths that they put to such good use in humiliating the Bulls 54-24 in Argentina in mid-May.

“The Jaguares are a good side, they will be backing themselves and the chance to finish first or second in the conference will be the energy that drives them. They play a bit smarter than the Argentina national side do, but they are very similar. What Wales, especially, and Scotland did well was to stop their momentum.

“The Jaguares like to have rhythm, they pass a lot, the ball goes through [flyhalf] Nicolas Sanchez’s hands a lot, and they also like to win a lot of ball in the air. They use the drive and the fake drive, they’re strong off nine and the blind wing, and they used the pick-and-go a fair bit against us last time too,” Mitchell said.