Hawies explains how SA Cup lessons helped secure victory over Bulls
REACTION: Boland head coach Hawies Fourie revealed the lessons he took from their SA Cup campaign which aided in their winning start in the Currie Cup against the Bulls.
The Bulls, who are renowned for their strong set-piece game, especially their line-out, won merely 63 percent of their own ball as Boland contested well to disrupt and put pressure on their jumpers and hookers.
Fourie revealed that his team’s line-out work was an area of concern during the SA Cup and that it was something forwards coach Pote Human worked hard on during the Currie Cup pre-season to get right.
“We had a big focus on the line-outs during the pre-season.
“After the SA Cup, I analysed our games against Griquas, whom we faced twice during that tournament, and we played against the Pumas and Cheetahs,” Fourie told Rugby365.
“I looked at those games because they qualified for the Currie Cup as well, and I looked at everything that we did against them – especially areas where we could improve and what we did well.
“The most important thing for us was our scrums. We conceded quite a lot of scrum penalties against those teams in the SA Cup and several maul tries.
“That was a big focus for us during the pre-season, and I’m really proud of coach Pote [Human] and the forwards for how they responded.
“The Bulls’ strengths are normally their kicking game and a strong set-piece, and I felt we had the upper hand against them in that department today [Sunday].”
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Boland’s next assignment is their provincial neighbours, the Stormers XXIII, who won a last-gasp match against the defending champion Griquas in Cape Town on Friday evening.
Last season, the Capetonians fielded their United Rugby Championship regulars in the final round of the round-robin stage and got the better of the Kavaliers. This time around, Boland will face most of the players who featured in the Griquas clash on Friday.
Fourie said his team will have to step up their game to beat the Stormers, as Griquas is a tough opponent that Boland struggled against in recent years.
“I was busy with renovations at the [Boland] stadium, so I didn’t watch the Stormers game live, but I downloaded the match last night and looked at it today [Sunday].
“We will make our plans. There are no obvious weaknesses; they played quite well against Griquas.
“We played the Stormers in a friendly, and it was a totally different game. It was the same players, but it was a different effort from the game they played against us two weeks ago.
“We know they’ll be up for it. They’ll take a lot of confidence from the win against Griquas, who are not easy to beat…ask us – we’ve lost against them five or six times in the past three years.
“It was a good effort from them, and it will take an even better effort from us to beat them next week.”
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