White sets Bulls’ sights on the URC playoffs
Their main objective achieved and with Ulster providing an assist by beating Leinster, the Bulls can ensure an extended home stand in the United Rugby Championship (URC) playoffs should they achieve a full haul of points in their final league match against the Sharks in a fortnight.
The Bulls beat Benetton 5635, ensuring they would host a quarterfinal. Hours later it got rosier with Ulster’s 23-21 victory against Leinster, putting Bulls second on the table. Victory with a bonus point against the Sharks on June 1, would cement a home semifinal slot, adding to the optimism Jake White expressed at the weekend.
“It’s one of those games — we want to win the conference too, which is why there is lots to play for against them,” said the Bulls director of rugby. While saying that winning the SA Conference was the main goal, he said it was a useful indicator of the Bulls reestablishing themselves as the country’s top provincial side.
“We used to be the best side in SA, but we’ve lost that mantle in the last two seasons. I’m hoping by Monday … that we reinforce the importance of winning something. It’s not that the conference is the thing you want to win … but you still want to be the best side in SA.
“We want to win that game against the Sharks and be the top SA side, which we haven’t done for a few seasons,” said White.
The Bulls ran in nine tries. Right-wing Canaan Moodie scored a hat-trick as the Bulls used a clinical start to keep Benetton at bay. The Italian club weren’t too displeased about the outcome having picked up a four-try bonus point of their own, giving them an excellent tour that included the previous week’s historic triumph against the Sharks in Durban.
White wasn’t too worried at his side conceding five tries. There were similarities with last week’s effort against Glasgow Warriors, when they let a 27point lead shrink to six, but White didn ’ t feel his team were hanging on against the Italian side as they did with the Scots.
“Last week it looked as though we were panicking. We went away from understanding that they needed to chase the game. I felt last week we started to defend 37-10 as a result and that’s why it almost came back to bite us. We were in exactly the same situation today and continued to score points,” said White.
“There’s a lot of changes, the cohesion is not the same, but there were blocks where we were a lot more in control than last week.”