No fear of complacency in Bulls camp, says captain Coetzee

Bulls captain Marcell Coetzee insists his side will not underestimate the challenge of a fired-up Lions team when the two sides clash in the cross-Jukskei United Rugby Championship (URC) derby at Loftus Versfeld in Pretoria on Saturday afternoon.

The Lions have had a decent season so far, but they head into the game off the back of two straight losses in the Challenge Cup and they will not want to lose a third in a row.

The Bulls will be favourites, however, having enjoyed a strong campaign on all fronts. They have picked up eight wins against four losses across all competitions which sees them sixth on the URC log and they head into the game off two Champions Cup wins that saw them finish second in their pool.

Stunning upset

But form doesn’t always count for everything, as was shown by the Lions last season when they went into their Bulls derby at Loftus on a poor losing run against South African sides, only to stun the hosts 29-25 in a fantastic game of rugby.

Coetzee vividly remembers that defeat and admits his side are well aware of the challenge that their Gauteng rivals pose.

“The Lions are a proud side. If there is one thing you don’t want to do, it’s to rile up another South African side,” said Coetzee.

“We learned that mistake the hard way the last time we played against the Lions. You can’t afford to be complacent in this competition.

“We will give them the necessary respect. We know what they can bring. At the end of the day, it’s about who wants it most on the pitch.”

Thrilling derbies

There have been some thrilling South African derbies already this season, with the Stormers beating the Lions (35-33), Bulls (26-20) and Sharks (16-15), while the Lions defeated the Sharks 20-18 and the Bulls thrashed the Sharks 44-10.

So the Bulls v Sharks game at Loftus in early December has been the lone blowout this season, with all the other SA derbies going down to the wire, and fans could be in for another close game this weekend.

“Local derbies are always tough and physical. It’s personal. Playing European teams is one thing, but we in South Africa are proud people. We want to go out on the field and give our best, because of the respect we have for each other,” said Coetzee.

“I’m sure this weekend won’t be any different. What we’ve learned in this competition is that you can’t start off well and then hit a slump of form and try to recover from that.

“The big one is not to be complacent. If you look at the statistics, we lost here the last time we played them.”