Cape Town – The Bulls are in danger of being knocked out of the Champions Cup and United Rugby Championship in quick succession, but Jake White is not feeling the pressure.
In fact, the director of rugby says the team’s run of four consecutive URC defeats won’t influence his selection or strategy in the immediate future.
Instead, there is a “bigger picture” process at play at Loftus Versfeld at the moment – turning the Bulls into a global powerhouse on and off the field, and the pitch-side stuff is what White is continuing to mould.
The Bulls are sixth on the URC log and face a tough last three games to reach the quarter-finals. They travel up north to face Ulster in Belfast on Saturday, March 25, then host Zebre in Pretoria on April 15 and complete their league campaign against Irish giants Leinster at Loftus on April 22.
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They will probably have to win two of those encounters to be sure of a playoff spot.
In between, they will travel from Belfast to France for their Champions Cup last-16 clash against Toulouse on Sunday, April 2 – so the heat is squarely on White’s charges.
You wouldn’t think that, though, as he former Springbok mentor is keeping his eye on the Bulls’ long-term goals, which is why he will also use the Currie Cup to develop players.
“Our job is to make the Bulls successful, to build a team over the next couple of years and to make the union strong over a long time. We don’t have two different squads or sets of rules – we’ve got it exactly the same. We want to make sure if a player comes from the Under-19s, 20s or 21s, he must be as comfortable to run in our senior team as any guy that’s there,” White said after announcing the appointment of Edgar Marutlulle as the Bulls Currie Cup head coach.
“My thinking is not about what happens next weekend, in two weeks’ time or in five weeks’ time. My job is that I would like the Bulls to be the most dominant team in the next couple of years.
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“So, even though there might be pressure involved in where we are in the URC now, or there’s pressure when we play Toulouse away – who are one of the best sides in Europe – that doesn’t mean now that I will change my initial thought.
“My initial thought is that we need to build a squad over the next couple of years. I need to see a front row that doesn’t have (Johan) Grobbelaar in it. I need to see a lock combination that doesn’t have Ruan Nortjé in it. I need to see a loose-forward combination that doesn’t include Elrigh Louw.
“That doesn’t for one minute mean I am panicking and changing it. It means that I am putting together a group of players that need to be stronger and stronger every year.
“If it’s about survival, then I can give you the team now – it’s Gerhard (Steenekamp), Grobbies, Mornay Smith, Ruan Nortjé, Marco van Staden, Elrigh Louw… What do I learn by that? Absolutely nothing.
“So, it’s got nothing to do with this or next weekend or next month. It’s about building a union and franchise that’s going to be dominant over the next couple of years.”
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White said that the Bulls were in a different situation to the Stormers, and that his team could have been in a much more favourable position if they were able to topple the Cape side and the Lions in their last two defeats.
“We could’ve got a penalty try in the last minute at the weekend (against the Lions) – that’s five points. We lost a lineout in the last play of the game against the Stormers – if we had scored, then we got another five points,” the former Brumbies, Sharks, Montpellier and Toyota Verblitz coach said.
“Then people would be saying the Bulls are so far ahead of the other South African franchises, Jake, what is the reason?
“So, those are the margins, those are the margins… Two lineout plays that we don’t score changes the whole complexity of (the current situation).
“I’m not going to now panic and change the way we initially thought. The board, the CEO, the coaching staff all know we’ve got to get better over time. We all know it’s going to take time.
“I use (John) Dobson as an example. Dobson has been with the (Stormers) franchise for 10, 15 years, from UCT into the Vodacom Cup into the Currie Cup, into URC.
“When he picks (Marcel) Theunissen or (Ernst) van Rhyn or those guys, the reality is that he’s had them. I’ve only been at the (Bulls) franchise for nearly three years, and I haven’t had the in-depth knowledge of every combination I’m able to play.
“So, very, very different to where we are as a union, compared to where the champions of the URC are at the moment.
“Having chatted to Edgar (Rathbone, Bulls CEO), Willem (Strauss, Bulls president), my owners and everybody that’s on board here, there’s a big picture for us.
“I am under the impression that it’s very difficult to win the Champions Cup. Racing Metro have been to four finals and never won, and if you look at their team from the last couple of years and the amount of internationals they’ve had, they too found it difficult to get over the last hurdle.
“I’ve been around to know that it’s a very tough competition to win the Champions Cup.
“We know where we are and what we need to do. We are obviously not very happy with where we are, considering we’ve had a couple of games where we could’ve got over the line and changed it.
“But I’ve been in the game long enough to know that two maul tries at the end of two games, and then you’ve got 10 points and we’re way ahead of everybody, and then you’re asking me, ‘What is it about the Bulls that makes them so dominant in South African rugby?’
“Those are the margins that we deal with, but at this point in time, we are still alive in three competitions, and we want to try to take all as seriously as we can, and manage as best we can to get results.”
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