Battling Bulls need to cut their suit according to their cloth if they are to recover

When I watch the Bulls imploding in game after game this season, I have flashbacks to the Springboks’ Ellis Park nightmare against the Wallabies last year.

In case your subconscious has blocked out that horror show, the Boks played sublime attacking rugby in the opening quarter to lead 22–0, but they ran themselves off their feet. In the second half, the Australians profited from the mistakes of the tiring Boks and ran in 38 unanswered points for a remarkable comeback victory.

Ellis Park, of course, is where Johan Ackermann took the Lions to historic heights in Super Rugby. Ackermann and the brilliant attack coach Swys de Bruin had Warren Whiteley’s men playing exhilarating rugby, and three Super Rugby finals were the result — two under Ackermann before he left for Gloucester, and a third under De Bruin. When you look at the Bulls’ approach this season, you wonder if Ackermann is trying to pick up at Loftus Versfeld where he left off at Ellis Park.

The Bulls’ opening match of the United Rugby Championship season was against the Ospreys. The Bulls impressed with nine sparkling tries in rattling up 53 points — the problem is that the Welshmen scored six of their own in amassing 40. The following week, an under-strength Leinster were beaten 39–31, also in Pretoria, with the Bulls scoring six tries. But, once more, there was a problem on defence as the Dubliners scored four tries — three of them in the second half as the Bulls tired.

This has pretty much been the pattern for the Bulls, although the initial wins have given way to seven consecutive losses across all competitions. In more recent times, there have been high-scoring home losses to the Lions (43–33), Bordeaux (46–33), and Bristol (61–49). The low-scoring anomalies have been the 21–12 loss to the Sharks in Durban and, especially, the 13–8 loss in Cape Town to the Stormers.

The latter Bulls performance was instructive because they could well have won that arm-wrestle, and they played more like they did under Jake White. White could be forgiven if he had been watching the Bulls unravel with a wry smile. Besides Handre Pollard, it is chiefly the same player roster that he took to three URC finals that has now lost seven in a row.

To play devil’s advocate: if White were still at Loftus, would the Bulls be in their current perilous position? Especially with Pollard playing the percentage, basics-first rugby which is the hallmark of the 2007 World Cup-winning coach. White asked the Bulls bosses to break the bank to get Pollard at 10 because he saw the ice-cool Springbok as the icing he needed for the cake he had built of brutal forward power.

Late last year, after the Bulls had lost to Leinster in the URC final, a faction of 12 senior Bulls players told CEO Edgar Rathbone that they were fed up with White’s allegedly tactless people skills. Either they hit the highway, or Jake did. White left and, subsequently, so did two of his assistants, Andries Bekker and Chris Rossouw. Interestingly, the defence coach, Jean Tiedt, has remained.

What has changed is how the Bulls play under Ackermann. The personable Ackermann is highly respected; he had success at the Lions and Gloucester, and he should have success at the Bulls given their star-studded squad. When you look at a pack of forwards that boasts seven current Springboks, and a backline that includes Pollard, Canan Moodie, Kurt-Lee Arendse, David Kriel, and the brilliant Springbok-in-waiting, Sebastian de Klerk, you wonder why the sum is not adding up to more than the parts.

The answer is that when it comes to game strategy, the Bulls need to cut their suit according to their cloth. A pack comprising Wilco Louw, Johan Grobbelaar, Gerhard Steenekamp, Jan-Hendrik Wessels, Elrigh Louw, Ruan Nortje, Cobus Wiese, Akker van der Merwe, and the underrated Jeandre Rudolf should be playing more "route one" rugby. Pollard and Embrose Papier should be keeping the ball in front of them. Under White, the Bulls scored plenty of tries, but first, the forwards did the hard yards.

What needs to happen now? The Bulls have left for a two-match overseas tour where they play Pau and Edinburgh. Before the first whistle, they need to have a powwow in which the 12 players who had so much to say about White take the responsibility of thrashing out—with Ackermann—the way they should play going forward.

The Bulls have a good coach and they have good players. They are just on the wrong path.