VIDEO: 'It will be a disaster'
The Bulls are on the brink of ‘disaster’.
With just two rounds of Currie Cup league action remaining, the Pretoria-based outfit face the very real possibility of not making the play-offs of South Africa’s premier domestic competition for the first time in years.
The Cheetahs and newly-promoted Boland Cavaliers are joint top, with 21 points.
Griquas (20 points), Lions (16), Pumas (15) and Bulls (10) are in a desperate dash for the remaining semifinal places.
The Bulls have an outside chance of finishing fourth, but that is also reliant on other results.
They face the Lions at Ellis Park this coming Saturday, and the Cheetahs at Loftus Versfeld a week later.
Beating the Lions and Cheetahs is the crucial part of their desperate dash to salvage their season, but they also need Griquas to beat the Lions and for the Pumas to lose to Western Province and the Sharks.
“You have clearly written us off,” Bulls coach Phiwe Nomlomo told a media briefing in the build-up to their Round Six trip 50-odd kilometres down the N1 to Johannesburg.
“It would be a disaster, for sure, if the Bulls were not in the semifinals, he added.
“We are expected to win games and feature in the play-offs in every competition.”
After a strong start to the Currie Cup, following victories over strugglers Western Province and the Sharks, the season unravelled for Nomlomo’s side as the Bulls suffered three consecutive defeats without accumulating any log points.
Call-ups to the United Rugby Championship squad and injuries depleted the Bulls so much that assistant coach Josh Strauss had to play off the bench in the loss to Griquas last week.
(WATCH as Bulls coach Phiwe Nomlomo addresses the possibility of his team not reaching the Currie Cup play-offs for the first time in years…..)
“We’ve had our challenges and we won’t make any excuses,” Nomlomo said of a competition the Bulls have won 24 times since their first title in 1946.
“We are still in the running for the play-offs and it is a must-win game for us [at Ellis Park].
“I am not ashamed to say it will be a disaster if we don’t make it.”
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