Cape Town - The Bulls need some heavyweight Springboks to compete on an equal footing with the other top teams.
That was the view of director of rugby Jake White in the aftermath of Sunday’s 33-9 Champions Cup last-16 defeat to Toulouse in France.
The Bulls hung in for about 50 minutes at the Stade de Toulouse via three Chris Smith penalties, but had to defend for long periods as the more powerful French club, boasting several Six Nations stars such as Antoine Dupont, Romain Ntamack and Cyril Baille, dominated the collisions and had a number of scoring chances.
Lock Emmanuel Meafou broke through from a tap penalty in the 51st minute for the opening try, which was followed by wing Matthis Lebel a few minutes later.
White said that it became “difficult” for the visitors to chase the game at that point, and replacement lock Thibaud Flament secured the victory with the third touchdown with 15 minutes to go.
That was the franchise’s 10th consecutive defeat across the Champions Cup, URC and Currie Cup.
Asked if he needed more current Springboks in his side – with Kurt-Lee Arendse and Canan Moodie the only national team players at the Bulls – White said: “Yes, yes, yes, and I’ve said that earlier. It puts things into perspective… I say to you guys week-in and week-out, you see how Kurt-Lee and Canan change our team, and they are only two Springboks who might not even start in the World Cup, because you’ve got (Makazole) Mapimpi, Cheslin Kolbe and Willie (le Roux) and Damian (Willemse).
“So, these two guys who won’t even start in the World Cup have made a massive difference to our game. When you put that into context and you’ve got teams like the Stormers, who’ve got 11 Springboks, and Sharks have 10 or 11, it’s very different.
“I was just saying to one of the guys in the change-room that I think Antoine Dupont and Romain Ntamack have got more Tests together than our whole team have Test-match experience.”
It has been a strange season for the Bulls, who won all before them since White took over in 2020 in the Super Rugby Unlocked tournament and two consecutive Currie Cup titles in 2021, while they also reached the United Rugby Championship final last season.
Now they’ve lost two Champions Cup, four URC and four Currie Cup games on the bounce, and it won’t get any easier this week as they face Griquas – who beat Western Province in Cape Town last Saturday – at Loftus Versfeld on Friday (5pm kickoff).
“I was watching the Sharks play (on Saturday, when they beat Munster in Durban), and we beat the Sharks twice in the Currie Cup final and in the URC quarter-final. So, over the last few years, we’ve dominated the Sharks,” White said.
“What’s changed? So they signed Bongi (Mbonambi), Siya (Kolisi), Eben (Etzebeth), Carlu Sadie, Rohan Janse van Rensburg, (Francois) Venter, (Vincent) Tshituka…
“We, in an unfortunate circumstance, lost Marcell (Coetzee), Arno (Botha), Duane (Vermeulen), Trevor (Nyakane), Walt (Steenkamp), Madosh (Tambwe)…
“The learnings are, it is what it is, and we’ve got to now adapt to what we have. A couple of guys put their hands up again (in Toulouse), and that’s part and parcel of where we want to get to as a group.
“I don’t want to sound like a stuck record, but we are far off from where we need to be to win this competition. We are far off from where we want to be as a union and how we foresee where we are, in terms of where we need to get to.
“We will get it right. We need to look at our squad, the way we rotated our players or whatever the story is and do a review.
“But in this moment in time, it is to get home, make sure we play well in the Currie Cup, and make sure we qualify for the URC playoffs.”
Regular captain and flank Marcell Coetzee will return soon from Japan, while the Bulls have made a few signings already for next season, including fullback Henry Immelman from Edinburgh, tighthead prop Wilco Louw from Harlequins and lock/flank Jannes Kirsten from Exeter Chiefs.
@FreemanZAR