Despite seeing his team go down in the final last season, Bulls boss Jake White doesn’t believe they need to change anything to clinch the United Rugby Championship trophy in the new campaign.
The Pretoria side will begin their quest for the elusive trophy on September 28 against Edinburgh at Loftus Versfeld, after their initial opener a week earlier against the Stormers in Cape Town was postponed due to the Currie Cup final being scheduled for September 21.
The Bulls lost 21-16 to the Glasgow Warriors in the Loftus final on June 22, having ended second on the overall log and beaten Benetton and Leinster in the play-offs.
White, speaking during a Vodacom URC media conference yesterday, felt that the Bulls have grown their depth accordingly to handle the pressures of a long season following the off-season acquisitions of players such as Cobus Wiese, Sintu Manjezi, Aphiwe Dyantyi and Nama Qaba.
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🗓️14 September 2024
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“I don’t think we need to change anything,” the former Bok coach said.
“To be fair, it will happen over time. The one thing we mustn’t forget – which I’ve been saying since we started – is that our squad is still very, very young ... still very, very inexperienced.
“Everyone in our circles will accept that we’ve exceeded our expectations over the past few seasons. With our additions we now have guys like Cobus Wiese, who is a bit older. Nama Xaba has joined us and is a bit older. Sintu Manjezi from Glasgow got older.
“The blend of the group that we have together, that will age any way ... We have eight or nine guys in the Springbok set-up this year, which is the first time in a long time.
“We will look at ways in which we approach certain things, and things that work, we’ll keep the same – and when we need to change, we will change.
“But everyone involved in our club would be on the same page about us having exceeded where we should be, and this will be a nice time for us to actually kick on and learn from the lessons of the last three seasons.
“I reflected a lot with the group after the final, and what really hit me and the squad is that we underestimated the value (impact) of (the play-offs).
“We played the Sharks in the final (league) round with a really strong Springbok-laden group. We then played Benetton, who have the majority of the Italian (Test) players. We then played Leinster, who have the majority of the Irish players.
“Then we played Glasgow, who have lots and lots of international players as well. The collective attrition and effort that it took to play four consecutive games like that took it out of us in the last round (final).
“When you add that all up, the season went well, the planning was spot-on and we got a home final. But what happened in the last game was a collective thing about what happened in the last month of the tournament.
“It was probably a bridge too far, and I’m hoping now with the squad we have that we can be a little bit tougher to last four weeks at that level, and be able to change the squad around in the season so that we don’t lose our legs at the back end of the comp.”