Jake White says Bulls’ versatility key to the team’s success

The reaction the Bulls demanded of themselves after the previous weekend’s defeat to Munster duly arrived in an 80-minute funfest at Loftus on Saturday that secured their top-eight spot in the United Rugby Championship (URC).

The Bulls ran in eight tries in a 61-24 romp over Welsh outfit the Ospreys, which ensures they will also have a run at the Champions Cup in 2025. But the goal for Jake White’s men doesn’t end with what happened on Saturday.

“You want to play as many home games [deep] into this competition as you can,” said the Bulls director of rugby.

This result “means we are in the [top] eight. What the next three results [will determine] is how long we play in Pretoria. That’s the nice thing that we get to play for in the last few weeks.”

After the defeat to defending champions Munster a week earlier, White wanted to see a response from his players, who cut disconsolate figures after a match in which they felt they didn’t do themselves justice.

“I needed a reaction. The players can’t just talk after last week, and say ‘jeez guys we’ve let each other down’. You want a reaction. You want good teams [to respond to the degree] that when they lose, [the] next week they take it out on the opposition. That is what we saw today.

“It makes a statement. Last week that team beat the Stormers in Cape Town. So they came here on a huge high,” said White.

With the forwards providing the perfect foundation, Embrose Papier, man of the match David Kriel and Willie le Roux led the Ospreys on a merry dance, with wings Kurt-Lee Arendse and Canaan Moodie scoring two tries a piece as a result.

“We could have scored 80 points. We left two or three tries out there ... there is no way you score 80 points in a URC game and not play well. As coaches, you are always critical about things, and I didn’t want us leaking three tries, like we did, but there was a lot of fight in the end to make sure they didn’t get another one,” said White.

The versatility of the backs allowed for variation with their attack, and there were occasions when the Bulls were anything but the plodding physical force their reputation implies.

“We want to make sure we have variation in our game. People expect us to play with our forwards but we need to be good enough to also play with our backs. We got that balance nice today.”

White said a lot of that was down to a need for players, especially the backs, to be willing to pop up in different positions and employ skills the numbers on their jerseys wouldn’t necessarily indicate.

“I would like to get backs who can play different positions; David has played wing, fullback, 12 and 13. Canaan has played 13, 14, 15, Kurt-Lee has played 15, 14, 11 ... the way the game is going now, in multiphase, the ability to transition from defence to attack is vital.”