Bulls face 'set-piece shake-up'
Addressing the media in the wake of his team's 28-36 loss to the Golden Lions in Pretoria at the weekend, Marais pulled no punches.
"Our set pieces are costing us the games at the moment," a bitterly disappointed Marais said.
While the line-outs were "acceptable", the scrums again cost the Bulls dearly – with penalties, free kicks and even a heel-against-the head that resulted in a try for the visitors from Johannesburg.
Although Marais did not mention any names, many critics have suggested most of the blame for the jam the Bulls' scrum is in can be laid at the door of their internationals – props Marcel van der Merwe, Dean Greyling and Werner Kruger, as well as one-time hooker Bandise Maku.
"The set pieces are not good enough and they are putting us under pressure." Marais said of a game in which his team went down 0-30, before a mammoth second-half comeback saw them almost snatch an unlikely victory.
"We have reached a point now where we have to make decisions about the way forward," the Bulls mentor said about his selection posers.
"There are big decisions I have to take this week, but we know the set pieces are not good enough."
Marais does not have a lot of time – with a two-week road trip, when they will face defending champions Western Province at Newlands on Friday and the Sharks at Kings Park a week later.
"We always knew we would be challenged in our away games," the Bulls mentor said, adding: "They [WP] got a full-house five points out of that game [37-27 win over the Sharks in Durban at the weekend] and are just five points behind us.
"It is going to be an interesting game. It is going to be a short turnaround, playing Province [at Newlands] on Friday and it will be interesting. Then we face the Sharks away, but we'll start planning for those on Monday."
Marais said his other big concern is the slow starts that are costing his team.
"In the last few matches we got away with being bad in the opening 20 minutes. Then we were good in the last 20 and beat teams.
"Against Western Province we were 14 points down and started playing better in the second half.
"In this match [against the Lions] it was the same.
"We simply need to start better. They [the Lions] punished us. [When they had] 30 points on the board I had a very bad feeling – it could have been 60 or 70 points .
"The players showed character in coming back, but we need to improve our starts. For me it is important that the players showed character. We could have won it at the end, but they were the better side."
Marais said he was "very disappointed" and could still have won this game, despite the slow start.
However, they must do the basics better.
"However, it is just not good enough to have such [poor] starts. We have to fix it going forward."
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