Bulls: It is out of our hands

Despite keeping alive their slim chance of making the play-offs with a 50-3 bonus-point victory over Sunwolves in Pretoria at the weekend, the Bulls need the Sharks to slip up against the same hapless team from Japan to open the door for the men from Pretoria.

With the Lions having wrapped up first place in the combined South African conference (including the SA Two conference) and the Stormers having sealed top spot in SA One, the Bulls and Sharks are in a straight 'shoot-out' for the SA wildcard slot.

The Sharks, who host the Sunwolves in Durban on Friday, are on 39 points.

The Bulls, who face a far tougher assignment against the Cheetahs in Bloemfontein a day later, are two points behind.

A simple win for the Sharks will secure a play-off spot for the team from Durban and leave the Bulls playing for pride only.

Marais, speaking to the media after his team's seven-try demolition of their Japanese rivals, said they got five points out of the match, which was what their goal.

"It is always a catch-22 against the Sunwolves," the Bulls mentor said, adding: "If you give them 50 [a 50-point hiding] then they [the Sunwolves] are not good enough.

"If you just beat them then you are playing badly.

"We made some mistakes, but the guys really played with intent.

"Now it is out of our hands what happens [next week].

"We will go out next week to beat the Cheetahs."

He pointed to his team's improved intent as one of the key factors behind the try bonus point.

"Our attacking intent was good in the first half, we played with the ball and there were good off-loads.

"That is something we've been working on.

"In the second half our kicking was inaccurate and we gave them too much ball to play with – which meant we were defending too much, rather than playing [with ball in hand].

"Also [we conceded] a lot of penalties in the second half, seven breakdown penalties.

"A lot of momentum was lost in the second half."