Jake White: 'I am not trying to be a smart alec'
Bulls Director of Rugby Jake White dropped another bombshell on the media at the weekend, revealing that a complicated European travelling schedule means his team is left with limited training and preparation time.
White, addressing the media after his team’s Round 10 United Rugby Championship loss to the Stormers, said he faces a massive juggling act in January – when selecting a team to play in two international competitions.
The Bulls boss recently suggested no South African team has the resources to win the Champions Cup against the seasoned campaigners of Ireland, France and England in Europe.
His latest divulgence came after the Bulls conceded second place on the URC standings to a fired-up Stormers team.
The Stormers’ win was their seventh in nine games, with one draw, and moves them to within four points of league leaders Leinster.
White said his team is very much still in a ‘development phase’ and not being able to compete with the financial muscle of the top European teams makes it a big challenge.
“I did a plan yesterday [this past Thursday],” White said in the wake of his team’s 27-37 loss to the Stormers last Friday.
“In the entire January, we have eight training days if we fly the way they want us to fly,” he said os a schedule that will see his team face the Sharks (away, this coming Saturday, January 31), Dragons (away, a week later) – all URC matches – return to Pretoria for a Round Three European Cup encounter with Exeter Chiefs, followed by a Crucial Round Four Euro Cup outing against Lyon away on January 20, before facing the Scarlets (in Llanelli on January 27).
He added that at least one of those matches also includes a bus ride of four hours.
(Article continues below …)
“You expect a professional team to train just eight times in one month,” White said, adding: “That is not a recipe for success.”
White revealed that he had a conversation with former Springbok mentor Nick Mallett, now a TV pundit, who had a European record of just seven wins in 14 matches while in charge of then French Top 14 champions Stade Français.
“All seven of his losses were in away games, while they were French champions.
“They lost away in the [Euro Cup] quarterfinals. They also lost to Ospreys and Ulster away from home.
“I am not trying to be a smart alec.
“People must understand the depth of our squad and the amount of money we have for our squad, especially my squad [the Bulls], I can’t talk for anyone else, means we don’t have nine Springboks we don’t have five World Cup winners.
“We are really a young team in our development stages.
“To play two [international competitions, URC and Euro Cup] and give the Currie Cup the kudos that people want us to give it, is going to be a massive juggling act come March, April and May -.when it is knock-out games and you need to win games to host the play-offs.
“You saw last year what happened to Leinster, who came here [South Africa] with their B-team. That cost them dearly.
“If they had brought their main guys they probably would have hosted the Final. They probably would have played someone else in the semifinal.”
White tried to look for positives from his team’s trip to Cape Town over the Christmas weekend, but admitted they lacked the composure of a seasoned and Springbok-laden Stormers team.
“I think we just showed moments of inexperience,” the Bulls Director of Rugby said after the match.
“That’s the only disappointing thing I can think of.
“There was a tap penalty on their line, where we’ve got five or six plays that we run, but we tap the ball and run and knock it on.
“Then I was making a substitution, and we got the timings wrong where there was one less defender on the far side when they ran the ball from the kick-off [for Suleiman Hartzenberg’s try], so I suppose that was inexperience in that there was a miscommunication.
“It was one of those games – [where] maybe four minutes [that cost us dearly],” he said of the Stormers’ three-try blitz early in the second half – which took the score from 13-all at half-time to 34-13 in favour of the Stormers.
“We scored three tries to four, got three scrum penalties – which is a massive step up from where we were two years ago.
“However, we looked a little bit inexperienced with some of the actions that we had.
“And the fact that we give the ball to guys like Canan [Moodie] and Kurt-Lee [Arendse] is why we played like we did tonight.
“They will get better – they are still young. Canan is just 20 years old.”
@king365ed
@rugby365com
