Dobson: Bulls have to roll the dice
CURRIE CUP SPOTLIGHT: Western Province head coach John Dobson is expecting the Blue Bulls to show some improvement in the scrums in their Currie Cup semifinal at Newlands on Saturday.
Province destroyed the Bulls up front during their 34-7 win in a 40-minute match at a rain-soaked Loftus Versfeld last weekend.
To try and counter Province’s power up front the Bulls have moved prop Trevor Nyakane from tighthead to loosehead for this clash, with Dayan van der Westhuizen slotting into the number three jersey.
“I’ve got no doubt that they spent the week on Loftus B [field] with a scrum machine or two packs with [forwards coach] Gary Botha,” said Dobson.
“For us to get the dominance I hope we are going to get will take a lot more work. I just hope we get a fair shot there in terms of how the laws are applied.”
Dobson added: “I think they [Bulls] are going to try and keep the ball against us, they are going to try and get a lot of phases and hopefully see us give away penalties and get into our 22.
“They have to roll the dice to a degree and that obviously makes them dangerous because if things come off for them we will be under some pressure. But our discipline is absolutely critical.
“Last week we had the territory game and if they are on our halfway playing keep ball then we have to be well disciplined there because they are very effective if they get into our 22.”
Meanwhile, Province made quite a few changes to their team for the match with the most notable being Damian Willemse’s return to the No.10 jersey.
Josh Stander has been in excellent form for Province during the Currie Cup season and was tactically brilliant in difficult conditions in Pretoria last weekend.
“Damian is Springbok. I think he has evolved a lot with that Super Rugby experience.
“His kicking game has come on quite a lot. We have been anxious throughout, but we took a policy that we would respect the Springboks.
“It wasn’t a hard decision. It was just a horrible decision in terms of feeling bad for Josh,” Dobson said.
By Warren Fortune
@FortuneWarren
@rugby365com
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