Ackermann to send Boks home as Bulls grapple with 'switch-off' problem
SPOTLIGHT: Bulls head coach Johan Ackermann revealed that his team will look a bit different when they face Glasgow Warriors in their final United Rugby Championship tour match next weekend.
The team from Pretoria bounced back from their defeat to Ulster in Round Three with a 28-27 win over Connacht in Galway on Friday.
Ackermann is now set to rotate his squad as he sends his Bok players home ahead of South Africa’s end-of-year tour, which begins against Japan at Wembley Stadium on November 1.
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“At this stage, Wilco Louw and Canan Moodie will go back home and one or two others as well,” said Ackermann after Friday’s nail-biter.
“We are going to rotate the squad purely to give some guys a mental and physical break.
“The 4G pitches are taking their toll on the bodies. There are a lot of bruises and a lot of skin off knees and elbows at the moment in the changeroom.
“It is a tough old tour, but then again, we are getting it out of the way early and then luckily we’ve got a few games back in South Africa.”
There are still big areas of concern for Ackermann despite his team’s victory in Galway.
Mistakes in pressure situations made certain stages of the game a bit nervy for the visitors, and Connacht could’ve snatched victory at the death if replacement flyhalf Sean Naughton landed his conversion attempts.
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Paul de Wet gets the Bulls rolling!
He opens the scoring for the Vodacom @BlueBullsRugby with a brilliant finish under pressure. 💥🐂
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“You couldn’t get it closer, and we could’ve lost it, so one is grateful for the victory,” Ackermann explained.
“But I felt we did a lot of good things, and we probably won’t feel too guilty about the victory. I felt we were in control of the game until that last moment when the ball was kicked and it swung inside, and they scored a good try.
“We will take the win. Again, there were a lot of mistakes, but the most pleasing thing is the character, and we didn’t have that big slump that we had against Ulster.”
Lapses in concentration will also be a big talking point in the Bulls camp ahead of the Glasgow showdown.
“The ability and the skills are there, but we tend to switch off. I spoke to some players now, and they said that it is still going to be a big work-on for us.
“We are fully in control and then one little mistake snowballs and we let the other side in.
“Every week you play quality sides that can punish you when you make mistakes, so if we want to progress, we need to cut those errors.”
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