Cape Town - The Bulls scrum has been the elephant in the room for a long time at Loftus Versfeld, but the men from Pretoria believe those days are in the past ahead of Saturday’s United Rugby Championship quarter-final against the Sharks (1.45pm kickoff).
The last time they faced the much-vaunted Durban pack at the same venue, on February 12, it was a nightmare for Jake White’s team as they conceded penalty after penalty in a 29-22 defeat.
The Sharks did the double over their great rivals, having won 30-16 at Kings Park in December, so it was sweet revenge for the two consecutive Currie Cup final losses in Pretoria last year.
The all-Springbok front row of Ox Nche, Bongi Mbonambi and Thomas du Toit would be dominant against many Test scrums around the world, so the Bulls trio of Gerhard Steenekamp, Johan Grobbelaar and Mornay Smith will have their hands full in Saturday’s playoff.
But the home side have taken significant strides forward in that set-piece in recent matches, and Bulls forwards coach Russell Winter believes that they have what it takes to handle the Sharks outfit this time around.
“I would like to think so! The only way you can combat something that’s really good is to prepare well, and we have been over the last couple of weeks,” Winter told Independent Media from Pretoria yesterday.
“We realise that they are a really good scrum, but we are not going to single that out as the catalyst for the game. It’s going to be a part of the game, which we really need to cope with and really need to do well in. We’ve done really well over the last couple of weeks with our scrum, and we are hoping it will go well this weekend.
“That previous game (in February) with all those penalties… that was where we really got caught out. We had players helping us out in certain positions, and it didn’t really bode well. We’ve prepared well and we’ve got the personnel for the job, and we think we are ready for it.”
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Winter feels that there were a few mitigating factors that counted against the Bulls scrum earlier in the tournament, and chief among those was losing tighthead prop Mornay Smith to an ankle injury for a few months. Veteran loosehead Jacques van Rooyen then had to do an ambulance job on the other side of the scrum, with the inexperienced Robert Hunt as back-up.
“We got some injuries and were running really thin, but we’ve got everybody fit again, and our depth in the front row has been really good over the last seven to eight weeks,” Winter said.
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“We’ve kept guys fit, and at the same time, we’ve worked really hard on it. And thank goodness, because the Sharks have got a really good scrum. A lot has been said about it, and everybody knows that it’s a Springbok front row, and they’ve got a lot of firepower in the front three.
“But we’ve worked really hard and have done a lot of homework. Hopefully we’ve done enough for this weekend’s game, because the local derbies are massive – they are probably the most physical games we can play in a season, because the guys really give it to each other, which is to be expected as there is a lot at stake for both teams.
“A lot of respect for their pack and their scrum, so hopefully it goes well.”
But while the scrum will be a major factor, Winter doesn’t want the Bulls to stray away from their attacking mindset – while the Sharks may want an arm-wrestle and make the game scrappy, and they are known for using their kicking game to put pressure on the opposition.
“These local derbies are massive – they become such physical contests that, before you know it, you fall into that trap of an arm wrestle,” he said.
“We like a good balance, so hopefully we can bring a balance in how we want to attack: whether we want to be confrontational or loosen the game up. Hopefully we have trained hard enough to create that balance on the field.”
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