Bulls boss wonders if Ludwig should be captaining as well as calling lineouts

The Bulls’ 29–19 defeat to the Sharks at Loftus at the weekend has given director of rugby Jake White much to think about going forward.

While he spoke at length during a press conference after the match on Saturday about his team being outpaced by the Sharks backline, he also said no one was blaming anyone and the Bulls needed to focus on the positives, and strategies and combinations that could be implemented in future matches.

Among these, White speculated that maybe he had unfairly given the young Reinhardt Ludwig the dual responsibilities of captaining and calling the lineouts without the benefit of a first-choice goal-kicker in the side.

Mistake or ‘great masterstroke’?

The 22-year-old flanker was named captain for the Bulls in the wake of injuries to Ruan Nortje and stand-in captains Elrigh Louw and Marcell Coetzee.

“It’s not pointing fingers. Reinhardt Ludwig is an unbelievable leader. He didn’t do anything wrong,” White said.

“If I think about it, him running the lineout and captain – I am only [speculating] now, I am not saying it was the case – maybe I need to have rethought that. Maybe it was a bit unfair on him [doing both].

“But who knows, in a couple of weeks’ time or a couple of years’ time when he is leading the team and he is the incumbent captain and everyone goes ‘great masterstroke’ then everything will be positive.”

White recalled how his decisions to make lock Nortje and loose forward Louw captain when there were questions around their leadership and they had their own lineout responsibilities, had been good calls.

Bulls boss: ‘Not really an easy day for a captain’

“[Ludwig] will have to learn from that and he’s bright. He’ll learn,” the Bulls boss added.

“I also have to learn from that. Maybe I was thinking he’d be okay in terms of calling the lineout and [captaining] but he didn’t have a goalkicker either so it’s tough on the youngster.”

White said this was because Ludwig may have had second thoughts about going for posts. This, after David Kriel only slotted one of his three kicks and Boeta Chamberlain only had an opportunity at posts in the 77th minute with a straightforward conversion.

“… And we missed touch twice so the poor guy probably thinks ‘if I go for touch we won’t find touch. If I goal for poles we hit the pole, and if I go for the lineout we’ve been turned over twice’. So it was not really an easy day for a captain.”