Cape Town — Some fans may feel that the Sharks’ Springbok-laden pack makes them favourites to beat the Bulls in Saturday’s United Rugby Championship quarter-final, but Jake White doesn’t think so.
In fact, the former Bok coach, in typical fashion, stoked the fires ahead of the Loftus Versfeld showdown (1.45pm kickoff) on Friday by stating that the Durban side’s double success over the Pretoria outfit in their round-robin games doesn’t count for much.
“They beat us twice, and we still finished ahead of them on the log. So, you don’t get any awards for beating someone twice! The reality is that the competition has three more weeks to go,” White said after naming his team, which included just one change in Arno Botha at flank from the starting line-up that beat the Ospreys last month.
“I’ve been reading so much and I don’t want to get into a debate, but I am very proud that we are the favourites! We lost twice to them, they’ve got five World Cup winners, and we don’t have one incumbent Springbok.
“So, it’s fantastic that they see us as favourites — it’s a feather in the cap of all our coaches and our players to get that accolade. That’s one thing we are going to enjoy. We are playing at home, we are fourth on the log. We lost to them twice, and hopefully history doesn’t repeat itself three times.
“We are really excited. Loftus feels a little different today — there is a bit of a buzz. People are coming to get tickets and it’s almost like the old days for me, where there’s something happening at Loftus tomorrow. Hopefully we will do the supporters proud, by playing as well as we can.”
The Bulls will be missing chief entertainer Kurt-Lee Arendse, who has still not recovered from a broken thumb that has sidelined him for a number of weeks, and White is baffled by the amount of backs who have been injured this season.
“He is not ready. In fact, I’m glad you asked that question. One of the things that have really hit us hard this year is long-term injuries. Looking today, we’ve got James Verity-Amm out for a while, Kurt-Lee out for a while, Lionel Mapoe out for a while, Sintu Manjezi, Sibongile Novuka, Stravino Jacobs, Johan Goosen, Jacques du Plessis and Jacques van Rooyen,” the Bulls director of rugby said.
“We’ve had six backline players out… You would think it’s the forwards, but it’s six backs who have had major injuries. Goosen has been out for the year, Jacques with his Achilles, Sibongile’s pec (pectoral) muscle.
“I don’t know… maybe it’s the amount of rugby that we’ve played. The forwards are generally the ones that get these big injuries, so it was interesting when I looked at that.
“Also a lot of our (black) players, which hasn’t helped either. We are trying to groom and get as many players through our system at the Bulls, so to lose Stravino, Sibongile, Kurt-Lee and Sintu, who would probably all have been part of our match-day 23 in most weeks… Lionel Mapoe the same. It’s obviously not ideal.
“Cyle (Brink) is a long-term injury, probably a four or five-month injury. He snapped his hamstring, so that’s another example.
“But the players who have been fronting up every week have played well, and even though they are not tried-and-tested combinations, they have played well enough to get us to where we are this weekend.
“It has been an interesting one, and I don’t want to rush players back. So, hopefully we will carry on playing in these competitions, and Kurt-Lee will be back sooner rather than later. I’ve got to put a guy on the field who I think can do the job at the weekend, and Canan has done fantastically at fullback.”
Teams For Loftus Versfeld
Bulls: 15 Canan Moodie 14 David Kriel 13 Cornal Hendricks 12 Harold Vorster 11 Madosh Tambwe 10 Chris Smith 9 Zak Burger 8 Elrigh Louw 7 Arno Botha 6 Marcell Coetzee (captain) 5 Ruan Nortje 4 Walt Steenkamp 3 Mornay Smith 2 Johan Grobbelaar 1 Gerhard Steenekamp.
Bench: 16 Jan-Hendrik Wessels 17 Lizo Gqoboka 18 Robert Hunt 19 Janko Swanepoel 20 Reinhardt Ludwig 21 Embrose Papier 22 Morné Steyn 23 Stedman Gans.
Sharks: 15 Aphelele Fassi 14 Werner Kok 13 Lukhanyo Am 12 Marius Louw 11 Makazole Mapimpi 10 Curwin Bosch 9 Jaden Hendrikse 8 Phepsi Buthelezi 7 Henco Venter 6 Siya Kolisi 5 Reniel Hugo 4 Le Roux Roets 3 Thomas du Toit (captain) 2 Bongi Mbonambi 1 Ox Nche.
Bench: 16 Kerron van Vuuren 17 Ntuthuko Mchunu 18 Khutha Mchunu 19 Ruben van Heerden 20 Sikhumbuzo Notshe 21 Grant Williams 22 Boeta Chamberlain 23 Ben Tapuai.
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