Bulls keen to beat Edinburgh to stay top of the URC table

The Bulls will go into their United Rugby Championship (URC) round five showdown with Edinburgh on Friday evening at the Hive Stadium highly motivated to get another win and stay on top of the points table.

The Bulls are leading the way with 14 points thanks to three wins from their four games.

Jake White’s charges, who have momentum and form at the moment, are not ready to relinquish their position at the top of the table anytime soon. That alone is fuelling them with fire ahead of the clash with Edinburgh.

“There’s a lot for us to play for,” White said when speaking to the media ahead of the game.

“We have an opportunity to stay on top of the log on our way home. Any sports team would like to do that, there’s a lot of internal motivation and drive, a lot of internal chat about the fact that we want to keep on doing well,” he said.

Still early days

The Bulls director of rugby has noted that their stay at the top of the log does not mean they will be there at the business end of the competition.

“It is nice to be top of the log,” White said.

“We learn from the past, and to be fair Munster (who won the title) were nowhere after five rounds last year, the Stormers were nowhere in year one after five rounds.

“It’s still early days, it’s not a given just because you’re on top of the log after four rounds you’ll be there at the back end of the competition.

“It is nice that we are there, it’s nice that we have played three away games and it’s also nice we have rotated our squad.”

Squad rotation

The Bulls mentor applauded his CEO Edgar Rathbone and the board for allowing him to travel with a squad of 33 players. White believes this has helped the team have a relatively successful tour in terms of results and player rotation.

“We brought 33 guys on tour, which is more than the other squads. The reason is that the board and my CEO understood that if we played four weeks at home, we wouldn’t have used the same 28 players either.

“So, I’m very fortunate, as it stands now, there’s only one player that hasn’t played on this tour, and he’s the third-choice tighthead.

“It’s fantastic we are on top of the log after a short stint, but more importantly, it’s fantastic I have been able to use 32 of the 33 players on tour, which is good for our depth, confidence and morale of the group,” said the former Springboks coach.