Bulls must now also make a statement in Champions Cup — Jake White

The Bulls have been in top form in the United Rugby Championship and now they want to transfer that to the Champions Cup as well and show they can mix it with the big boys of European club rugby.

With the two Europe-based competitions (also the second-tier Challenge Cup) kicking off this weekend, the leading South African team in the URC at the moment, the Bulls, have declared themselves ready to challenge for one of the biggest prizes in club rugby.

With the URC on a two-week break and the Bulls sitting pretty in third spot on the points table, an altogether different test awaits the men from Pretoria, who’re grouped in Pool 1 with English powerhouse Saracens, the Bristol Bears, French sides Bordeaux Begles and Lyon, and URC rivals, Connacht from Ireland.

‘Tough competition’

The Bulls, who play four matches in the group stages (two at home and two away), kick off their campaign with a blockbuster encounter against Saracens at Loftus Versfeld on Saturday (7.15pm).

“I’d like for us to be competitive this year,” said Bulls boss Jake White this week when quizzed about his goals for the competition.

“We know how tough this competition is. Playing Toulouse away last year was one of the biggest games we ever played from an atmosphere point of view, for the players.

“From a coach’s point of view, you have got to have depth in your squad … if you want to be competitive.”

The Bulls were knocked out in the last 16 by Toulouse last season.

Picking battles

The Bulls need to finish in the top four of their pool to make it to the last 16 and White knows he will have to pick his battles carefully as he plots a way out of the group.

“One will get a feel of the competition after this weekend. We’ll see where we are standing, we’ll see the other competitors and the level of competition,” White said.

“It’s a case of how good are Lyon and Bristol in week one … those are the teams we have to play away (later on) and Bordeaux (back at Loftus). It’ll be interesting to see what kind of level those teams are at and how much they put into their selection.”

Momentum

The Bulls have momentum on their side after winning five of their seven URC matches to far and, according to White, the players shouldn’t have too much trouble translating their URC form into the Champions Cup this weekend.

“You can imagine (how high the morale is) when you’ve won five out seven,” said the former Bok boss.

“But, we are also very mindful that it’s not a given that you have momentum now and you’ll win the next couple of games. It’s a tough month we have ahead of us.”