Glasgow know what to expect from ‘snorting’ Bulls

Glasgow Warriors say they know to expect a physical and motivated side when they host the Bulls in the United Rugby Championship (URC) on Friday (8.35pm).

The Scottish outfit’s attack coach Nigel Carolan said the Bulls will be “coming with a vendetta”, and he is not wrong.

Bulls boss Jake White said they have been targeting this match since the pre-season after losing to Glasgow 21–16 in the URC final at Loftus last year. He said everyone wrote the date of the game on their wall.

“We always knew that the next time we played against them was going to be an opportunity for us to play as well as we can,” White said.

The Bulls are in a good position to do so, just about having their team at full-strength again, and coming off a confidence-building 16–13 win against Munster in Ireland last weekend.

Glasgow know what to expect

For his part, Carolan told Scottish media that Glasgow are not unaware of the challenge at their doorstep.

“Obviously, they’re coming with a vendetta. They’re quite open about that,” Carolan said.

“Jake White alluded to it after Munster that they have a target on our back, and their whole season is really about getting revenge, and getting one up over us on Friday. But that’s all fine and well.”

Glasgow come from a tough 14–6 win over Zebre in Italy last weekend. But they were thrashed 52–0 by Leinster in the Champions Cup quarter-final in Dublin the week before.

“I think the ball’s in our court. Any team that comes to Scotstoun, they should feel that they’re coming to the slaughterhouse. And when we put our best game on that pitch there, it’s very difficult to deal with it.

“We don’t really talk about the Bulls and what they’re going to bring. You know what the challenge is going to be. They’re going to be physical. Obviously they’re going to be snorting when they come out because the chip is on their shoulder, trying to get revenge over us. But for us it’s about being calm. And again it’s about systems and processes, and trying to do the best of our ability.

Bulls build momentum after Munster win

“It’s nice to go there with momentum and a positiveness,” White said after the Munster game. There, the Bulls showed defensive resilience and their line-out, which was awful against Edinburgh the week before, was back to its usual consistent standard.

The Bulls were again strong in mauls and rucks, as they’ve been all season.

They will be especially happy with the great game 2023’s Golden Boot winner Johan Goosen played on the day. The flyhalf started his first game since sustaining a knee injury in January, slotting all three of his kicks and even showing enough confidence to go for a drop-goal, which had the distance but went slightly wide.

Club captain Ruan Nortje also had a great game starting his second match since his own knee injury sustained in December.