‘We tried everything to lose that game,’ says Bulls’ White

Bulls Director of Rugby Jake White admitted that small margins were the difference between winning and losing the North-South United Rugby Championship (URC) derby between the Bulls and Stormers at the Cape Town Stadium over the weekend.

The visiting Bulls picked up their first ever URC win in Cape Town, but it could have just as easily been their sixth straight loss in the city, after replacement back Clayton Blommetjies missed a relatively straightforward conversion attempt with less than a minute left to win the game for his team.

That meant the Bulls could celebrate a bonus point 33-32 win, but it arguably shouldn’t have been so close after the Highveld side dominated the set pieces, and after managing to take the lead in the first minute of play, somehow contrived to always let the Stormers back in.

Upset

“I would have been upset (if we lost). I probably would have been asked if I’m going to lose my job. That’s the margins guys (between winning and losing),” said White after the match.

“If he had kicked that over, I would really be unhappy because we found a way to lose that game. Even Schalk Burger (former Springbok flank) just said to me, ‘Can you try any harder to lose a game?’ And he’s right. I mean, we tried everything we could to actually lose that game.

“The fact that we got out of it, and won, is fantastic, but we will have to talk about it at Monday’s video session. We’re going to have to be a little bit more composed and controlled, because at times when we were in our half we were rushing it too much.”

But much of the focus will fall on the poor performance of both teams’ kickers, with outside centre David Kriel handed the kicking duties for the Bulls after Willie le Roux was given the number 10 jersey.

Kriel missed the Bulls’ first conversion attempt after lock Cobus Wiese’s early try from a widish position.

But it was his poor penalty miss early in the second half that would have put the Bulls 11 points ahead, and another poor conversion miss in the 70^th minute that would have given them an eight point lead, that almost proved costly.

Poor kicking

Stormers flyhalf Jurie Matthee also had a very poor day with the boot, missing an easy conversion and penalty, while a tougher conversion attempt came back off the uprights.

Stormers Director of Rugby John Dobson however refused to blame their kickers, focusing more on other aspects of the game that cost them.

“I am very proud of the way we fought at the end there. We had multiple 22m entries. I am not so happy with how we did in the scrums, especially in the first half. We lost a lot of territory and it put us on the back foot early on,” said Dobson.

“But in regards to kicks they also missed a few (crucial) ones that could have taken them two scores clear. It was tough for Blomme, we put him on with four or five to go which is horrible for a guy because he wants to play rugby.

“Your head’s in a difficult space then and that’s not his fault, he’s been sitting on the sideline frustrated about not being part of the game and he is then just thrown in and has to kick the winning kick.

“So there is no judgement to Blomme. He is very emotional about both the kick and the fact that he felt he wasn’t quite ready for that moment. I feel very sorry for him.”