Jake White: D-Day for Bulls to show how good they are in Leinster URC final

Whatever has happened in the past won’t count for much for the Bulls in Saturday’s United Rugby Championship final against Leinster in Dublin.

That was the word from Bulls boss Jake White yesterday as he addressed the Irish media ahead of the title decider at Croke Park (6pm SA time kick-off).

The Pretoria side have come up short twice in the URC, losing the 2022 final to the Stormers in Cape Town, and then going down 21-16 to Glasgow at Loftus Versfeld last year.

But White doesn’t feel that losing two previous finals will have any effect on this weekend’s game against the Irish giants.

One could argue that Leinster are in a similar boat, having failed to clinch the URC crown since the South African teams joined the competition.

They lost in the Champions Cup semi-finals this season as well, so coach Leo Cullen and his team will also be hungry for silverware this weekend.

“To be fair, it’s completely different teams, competitions, venues, different time of the year... People can look at it and say this team loses semis, this team loses finals. This team has a lot of Irish players... It’s irrelevant, it doesn’t matter,” White said after training in Dublin yesterday.

“It doesn’t make any difference. I generally don’t believe that any coach ever talks about what happened 20 years ago.

“This group of players have probably far exceeded expectations of anybody in the last four years.

“We’ve made three finals, and the average age of our team over the last four years has been the youngest of most teams in the competition.

“Many of the teams we play are laden with internationals, who play in front of big crowds and in big stadiums in pressure situations, which define players who are good enough.

“I’m not saying that we’re not aware that we’ve had three finals, but we are also very aware that we have exceeded what everyone has expected, and we have probably batted above our weight for a long time.

“Hopefully this game will be the one where we will learn from the two other opportunities we had to win this competition.”

The Bulls actually have an excellent record against Leinster, having only lost once (in 2021) in five matches.

That includes two semi-finals – one each in Ireland and South Africa – as well as their most recent encounter in Pretoria, where the Bulls edged it 21-20 against an inexperienced Leinster outfit without most of their Test stars.

But with the URC trophy up for grabs in front of what is going to be a sizable crowd in excess of 40,000 fans in the 82,300-capacity Croke Park, the Bulls will need to count on experienced hands such as Willie le Roux, Marcell Coetzee, captain Ruan Nortjé and dynamite prop Wilco Louw to lead the way.

They certainly have the firepower to go toe-to-toe with Leinster, with Springboks such as Canan Moodie, Embrose Papier and Jan-Hendrik Wessels all in fine form at the moment, even though White confirmed that star No 8 Cameron Hanekom is out injured.

“You try and put people under pressure. And we’re under pressure too. There’s our third final, people will say,” White said.

“So, you know, the Bulls’ argument (will) say, we lost one (last year’s final) at home that people expected us to win. So, it depends which side of the coin you look at.

“But rugby is never going to change. We’re going to have to put teams under pressure.

“If they start well, you’re going to make sure you catch up. If you start well, they’re going to make sure they catch up.

“They’re a quality team, guys. I know you guys (Irish media) are harsh on them, and I read in between the lines.

“And yes, the expectation is... They’re still a very, very well-coached team. And they’re still a very, very... how can I put it to you? A team that’s revered by the teams in the competition.

“And if you want to win the comp, I’ve said it from day one, when I saw them get a good start, five points, five points, five points...

“My message for the last four months, five months, is if you think you’re good enough to beat Leinster away, then you’ve got to win all these games to get to the final, which we’ve now done.

“And now the question I’ll ask them this week is, you’ve said you’re good enough to beat Leinster away. Now, let’s see how good we are.

“So, that’s been coming for four months now.

“Our measure was, if you think you’re good enough to beat Leinster, because it was inevitable this year that we’re going to get first place, because no one was going to catch them.

“I think at one point, like 20 points ahead. It is now... It’s sort of now D-Day.

“It’s D-Day for us. It’s an opportunity to say or do what we said we could do. Or believe we could do.”