“It’s irrelevant the place you at the moment are. It’s the place you’re going to be when the playoffs come.”
Bulls director of rugby Jake White is satisfied with his group’s position because the year involves an end, regardless of their 26-20 United Rugby Championship (URC) defeat in opposition to the Stormers at Cape Town Stadium on Saturday night time.
Although the Highveld aspect have been unable to interrupt their duck, dropping their seventh straight match within the URC in opposition to their coastal rivals, they have been nonetheless effectively positioned on the log going into the brand new year.
The Bulls have been third on the URC log earlier than the sport and had dropped to fourth by the end of it, however they’re nonetheless the very best positioned South African group within the competitors and have run of residence video games developing.
“It’s eight rounds that we’ve played, and we’re top of the South African team. If you had said that before we started, that we’d get to Christmas, be top of the SA teams and we’ve only played three home games this year, I’m sure all the Bulls supporters and we coaches would have taken it,” White stated after the sport.
“We’ve got to regroup over the next two weeks because we were on the wrong end of the result. But the tournament isn’t over, and anyone will tell you if you look at the last couple of years it’s irrelevant where you are now. It’s where you’re going to be when the playoffs come.”
Good kind
The Bulls’ good kind this season, coupled with the Stormers’ struggles, introduced hope to the group and their supporters that they might lastly be capable of get that elusive win over their rivals, however within the end it wasn’t to be because the Cape aspect secured a deserved victory.
“This is a tough place to win. To be fair good teams have come here and lost. I was always aware of that, they’ve got a proud record here. We had our chances and credit to them. They kept us out two or three times on their try line,” stated White.
“They solely scored two tries in opposition to us. I do know a number of have been disallowed, however I believed we scrambled effectively and our defence has undoubtedly improved.
“Their defence has all the time been a power. Quite a bit of guys discuss Norman Laker (Stormers defence coach) in excessive regard and we noticed that tonight. The approach they defended with these faucet penalties (on their line) exhibits they work collectively.
“It’s not the result we wanted. I thought we made a couple of unforced errors, but that’s the pressure that comes from these games.”
Poor begin
White additionally admitted that his aspect have been simply not ok after they gave away a slew of early penalties which put them on the again foot.
“In the first half I thought that was probably the worst we’ve played this year. The interesting stat with penalties was that we conceded eight in the first half and six in the first 22 minutes,” defined White.
“If you give any side six penalties in 22 minutes to start off the game you put yourself behind the eight ball. It wasn’t so much the eight conceded, it was the six early on in the game.”
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