‘Growth pains’ continue to trip up Bulls as injuries mount

It wasn’t difficult to pinpoint where the Bulls went wrong in slumping to a 28-38 loss to the Brumbies at Loftus on Saturday.

John Mitchell’s charges frustratingly let in two tries in the final 15 minutes despite their Australian opponents having to play the last 20 with 14 men following hooker Folau Fainga’a’s red card for a head butt.

“Yeah, we let it slip,” said the Bulls mentor.

“We didn’t earn it in the end. We had the opportunity to do so but we didn’t. That’s in a nutshell why we lost this game.”

The Bulls’ habit of not making their opportunities count started much earlier, particularly in the first half where they failed to make four penalties to touch count.

Mitchell though was surprised that referee Marius van der Westhuizen didn’t lose patience with the Brumbies during that period.

“When you’re cynical at maul time, Marius is usually a guy that goes to his cards early,” he said.

“On this occasion he didn’t for some unknown reason. We saw a lot of guys at the back of mauls. It’s an easy out to say they came through but there’s a lot of them ‘swimming’ – hitting up at the back of mauls. It’s not ideal.”

While the Bulls coaching staff demand high standards nowadays, Mitchell isn’t oblivious to the fact that his youthful, inexperienced squad will continue to make mistakes.

And a mounting injury list amongst the forwards isn’t helping.

“Without making excuses, we are becoming very thin up front,” said Mitchell.

“We do have a lot of players too that are developing in Super Rugby. This is unfortunately part of the evolution we’re going to have to go through. There’s no magic solution to this.”

Flankers Marco van Staden and Roelof Smit are both anxiously awaiting scans on knee injuries that are thought to be quite serious.