Victory for Bulls at Edinburgh will confirm drought-breaking win at Pau was no fluke

The Bulls deserve a pat on the back for grinding out a gutsy Champions Cup win over classy Pau, who are second on the French Top 14 points table, but fans are not getting carried away just yet.

Seven painful losses preceded the 26-24 win at Pau; the sentiment is that one swallow doesn’t make a summer, and only a win on Friday night in Edinburgh will convince fans and critics alike that the Bulls have turned the corner under Johan Ackermann.

Encouragingly, the Bulls tightened up their defence last week. Until that match and excluding their tight, 13-8 tussle with the Stormers, the Bulls were conceding an average of almost six tries per game in their pursuit of a more attacking, adventurous style of rugby.

The Bulls have, in fact, been scoring more tries this season. Still, the problem is that they have opened themselves up to counterattacks from turnover ball, and ended up leaking more tries than they scored in high-scoring matches, the 61-49 defeat to Bristol being a prime example.

A priceless commodity the Bulls will take to the Scottish capital is confidence. At the final whistle in Pau, the Bulls players danced about the pitch as if they had the World Cup.

They need to carry that enthusiasm over to the Hive Stadium and show the rugby world that their win last week was not the product of desperation but, rather, a decision taken by the players and the coaching staff to adopt a style of rugby that better suits their abrasive talents.

But it will hardly be easy in Edinburgh, where Sean Everitt’s team are unbeaten this season.

Former Sharks coach Everitt was a Bulls assistant under Jake White before landing his current job, but he told the Edinburgh Rugby website that he doesn’t know what to expect on Friday night.

“The Bulls are a difficult team to analyse at the moment because they’ve had a change in the coaching staff and they’ve been trying to grow their attack with a new coach,” Everitt explained.

“They’ll come here with a different energy. They’ve got big players, and they enjoy their direct rugby. What we do know is that we need to be accurate because they do pose threats for us at set-piece time as well as at the breakdown.”

Against Pau, there were positive signs that Handre Pollard is being allowed to play a game better suited to his skills.

“They’ve added Pollard to their armoury, and he’s a world-class 10 as we know,” said Everitt.

“I watched Handre come through school level, and he was a different class at that point. As a schoolboy, he played for the South African Under-20 team; he showed a lot of potential there, and he certainly reached that. I’m sure he will play on Friday night.”

Everitt expects a full-strength Bulls side after they successfully rotated their squad against Pau.

“They came to Europe with 30 of the best players that they could pick. They didn’t pick their best team against Pau, obviously resting players after their Bristol defeat to be fresh for us. I presume that they’ll go for full strength as they look to climb the URC ladder (from 11th place).”