Bulls coach White not worried about referee ahead of Benetton match

Bulls Director of Rugby Jake White isn’t worried about Irish referee Eoghan Cross being the man in the middle for their United Rugby Championship (URC) clash against Benetton at the Stadio Monigo in Treviso on Friday night (8.35pm).

The Bulls have had a torrid run with refs over their past two games, against Ospreys and Scarlets in Wales, with them receiving four cards over those matches, two reds and two yellows.

Cross was in charge for the game against Ospreys and in the second half of that game red carded Bulls centre David Kriel, and also yellow carded Bulls forwards Elrigh Louw and Alulutho Tshakweni, while against Scarlets Italian ref Federico Vedovelli red carded Bulls hooker Johan Grobbelaar.

Both red cards were then proven to be incorrect, with a URC disciplinary committee rescinding Kriel’s, while Grobbelaar’s was downgraded to a yellow card.

Kriel’s was very harsh, after he was sent off for fending off a player dangerously, despite their being many mitigating factors, while the yellow card to Tshakweni was also debateable, and both those decisions were made by Cross.

Bulls adapt

Despite that White is more than happy to have him refereeing the Bulls again and believes his team just has to adapt to how he refs the game.

“He’s a Test referee and he’s going to ref Test matches in this block coming up. He is a rated referee. He made a (wrong) call. One of the things that I said after that (Kriel) incident and the next one (Grobbelaar) is that referees are human,” explained White at the Bulls team announcement.

“What I am really happy about is that there is a judiciary that gives the player a chance to state his case. So I am not wary of anything from a referees point of view. He obviously refs a certain way, we have now experienced that and we have to find a way to adapt.

“I am not talking about the cards. I am talking about the style of refereeing, like the interpretations at scrum time and at the mauls.”

White continued: “All of this is a work in progress with Tappe (Henning, URC head of referees). We are continually working with URC head office, referees and referee coaches on how we can improve. Both from a refereeing and a coaching point of view.

“There will never be a time when we get a different ref every single game, so there will always be times when we have certain refs refereeing us multiple times in a season.”

Tough challenge

Looking ahead to the match against Benetton, White is expecting a tough challenge against a team that pushed them hard twice at Loftus last season, and that is on the up, having picked up two good wins after a difficult start to the season.

“Benetton is a really good team. If you go through it they have a lot of Argentinians, they have some Kiwis, South Africans, and a large number of Italians. It’s a well balanced squad,” said White.

“They have put players in certain positions that make them much stronger. So it’s a very difficult team to get on top of because they have such a great mix of power, pace and skill in their team.

“They made the quarterfinals last year and we had to play very well to beat them (at Loftus). They beat the Sharks with a bonus point (a few weeks ago), so they will have taken a massive amount of confidence from beating a South African team at home.

“So it will be like it always is. It is going to be a tough game and we are just going to have to find a way in which we can play our best rugby.”