When the players trotted off the field at half-time in their United Rugby Championship (URC) quarterfinal against Edinburgh yesterday, the visitors had the lead and momentum.
But the Bulls returned a more determined side to stamp their authority on the game and eventually ran out 42-33 winners to secure a place in the semifinal at home.
In the last four matches, Jake White’s men will play the winner of the last quarterfinal match between the Sharks and Munster, which played out last night at Kings Park in Durban.
Reflecting on the Edinburgh win, White said there were some honest discussions in the dressing room as he was not satisfied with how they played in the first half. “There were a couple of choice words which I can’t repeat on national television,” he said with a wry smile.
“But at the same time, what are you going to do? You can’t just shout and scream and behave like a lunatic out there, and think it will sway your team automatically. I told the players: ‘We gave them a good start but it’s an 80-minute game’.
“Coming from 21-18 in that short space of time must have made the players feel there’s a learning here and that’s what you want as a coach. You want players to learn from where they are, understand the situations they are in because it is never going to be where you are in and get what you want.
“I told them we haven’t played, we haven’t held on to the ball, we played with 14 men and gave them 14 points, what do you expect. Now the challenge is, are we good enough as a group to have learned lessons to go out there and finish this game and make sure we control it?
“We learned our last lesson from the last time we played against them. There are not many teams that go 21-18 down at half time of a quarterfinal match and go on to win as convincingly as we did. The other lesson we learned is that we can’t go down to 14 men and give them two tries and think we will always come back to win. I am happy there was resilience and fight from the players.”
The players clearly took White’s words to heart as they started the second half with three quick tries from Canan Moodie, Keagan Johannes and Ruan Nortje in less than 10 minutes — giving them a firm grip on the match.
That was in addition to the first-half tries they scored through Cameron Hanekom, David Kriel and Harold Vorster, as they responded to the visitors who ticked the scoreboard from Wes Goosen and a brace from Ross Thompon.
In the closing stages, Edinburgh tried to claw their way back into the game with tries from Ewan Ashman and Goosen’s second of the afternoon, but the Bulls held on for this crucial victory, which keeps them in the hunt for their first URC title.
One of the things White will have to work on for Saturday’s semifinal is the kicking ability of Johannes, who wasted a few opportunities from the kicking tee to put his team under pressure.
But whoever they are going to play on Saturday, White will be comfortable knowing he has experience with players like Wilco Louw, Cobus Wiese, Marcell Coetzee, Ruan Nortje, Embrose Papier, Canan Moodie and Willie le Roux.
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