Bulls count injury toll after Stormers defeat

REACTION: The Bulls could be without two of their star backline players as they gear up for Friday’s upcoming encounter against Cardiff.

Coach Johan Ackermann told reporters that centre Harold Vorster failed his HIA (head injury assessment) after the 19-32 loss against the Stormers, while winger Sebastian de Klerk may have sustained a broken bone in his foot.

De Klerk left the field in the 36th minute and was replaced by Springbok Willie le Roux.

According to Ackermann, the initial prognosis was a broken bone in his foot, and it was a repeat injury as De Klerk had previously suffered a similar fate. He was in a moon boot (orthofit foam walker) after the game and will see a doctor first thing on Monday morning.

The Bulls have a short turnaround time this week as they face the Welsh side at Loftus Versfeld on Friday evening. The following week, they host Munster on Saturday.

“Harold failed his concussion test right at the end. We will have to see if he will have enough days to turn it around, but he failed the one he did after the game.”

The coach admitted that it was not the performance he had expected of his charges. The Bulls were clear favourites going into this encounter, following the Stormers’ run of losses over the last few weeks.

“We were caught off guard; we really felt the team had prepared well this week,” the coach said, and highlighted what went wrong, saying, “It was the basic stuff that let us down. It is frustrating to lose if you are not doing the basics well.

“Which is what we did well the last couple of weeks. That is the big disappointment,” he conceded.

“We as coaches must look at ourselves and take on the chin as a team and realise in these derbies, form is out the door, everyone is good, and the Stormers were more accurate than us.

“I said to the players now, this hurts, but there is not a lot of time to sulk. We have a short turnaround – we play on Friday – and the best thing we can do is fix ourselves and come back on Monday as a team with the right mindset.

“We need to bounce back on Friday.

“Hopefully, we can do that, because we have to perform to stay in touch with everybody.”

Ackermann admitted that losing scrumhalf Embrose Papier ahead of the game was disappointing. Papier’s wife was admitted to hospital for the birth of their baby.

“One will never know how many touches he would’ve had and the influence, but reality is that we have quality nines in the squad, and Paul [de Wet] is a good player, Zak [Burger] is a good player.

“There is a lot of strong competition, and it can happen in any game that we have to play any of those three. We had a lot of confidence that Paul could have a big influence on the game.

“I don’t think it was individual, I think if you look at the 80 minutes, as a team we just didn’t play the rugby we can play.

“On the day, we were just not there. If you think you can just pitch up and play because we are in form, it is the biggest mistake you can make in any derby.

“One of the last things I said to the players was, “Remember, we are playing a desperate side, but we must also be desperate.

“This is the margins of sport, you can never predict a favourite if two good teams play each other.

“If we finished some of the points in the first half and let it go 14-0, different game. But we didn’t. And they stayed in the fight and they got the result. Credit to them.”

Ackermann is not likely to make drastic changes to the run-on teams for the rest of the season. He explained that continuity is vital to stay in the hunt.

“As far as we can, at this moment, my feeling is that we need to have continuity. So, unless a player has played a lot of 80-minute games – that nobody has, because we had the four-week break and the one-week break – I feel we need to build on that continuity.

But he might wield the axe after the performance, or the lack thereof, against the Stormers.

“Obviously, there are players in the changeroom who possibly are out for next week. So that will force us to change.

“Unless we feel we must change to bring something different.”