White on why Bulls are primed to turn the tables in Cape Town
SPOTLIGHT: Bulls Director of Rugby Jake White says there are positives and negatives to facing the Stormers in Cape Town in the United Rugby Championship quarterfinals.
However, for now, the Bulls’ boss is focussing on the bright side of things.
The match will be a repeat of last season’s Final when the Capetonians edged the Bulls 19-13 to claim the inaugural title.
The Bulls have already lost twice to the Stormers this season, but White believes his team is primed to get a rare win over their arch-rivals.
“We got the Stormers and there are positives and negatives to that,” said White.
“One of the massive positives is that we can stay at home and travel literally on the last day. We don’t have to leave early in the week.
“We know how disruptive leaving early in the week can be with training sessions and an extended squad that you have to take.
“Another positive is that last year they were champions and we got a chance to play against the champions.
“I suppose the other positive is that we know what to expect because we played the Stormers so many times as well.
White added: “It’s not a case of who would you have preferred to play. I think we got to a stage where we are just very happy we made the play-offs.
“We didn’t afford ourselves the luxury during the year to get a home semifinal or home quarterfinal.
“We didn’t afford ourselves the luxury as Leinster did to play different teams in the backend of the competition because they already won the log.
“I don’t think we are in a position to comment about who we would have preferred to play. We could only control what we could control and thankfully we did that over the last couple of weeks.”
The Bulls entered their final two league games against Zebre and Leinster under a bit of pressure to secure a play-off place and Champions Cup qualification and White believes that will put them in good stead heading to Cape Town.
“When you start a competition, you want to be playing in the backend of the comp, so we are very happy with that.
“Obviously, we had a lot of pressure going into these last couple of games because we had to win them, but in some ways that is also a blessing.
“It has been knockout rugby with the pressure and it is exactly the same when you get into the play-off stages.”
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#⃣ICYMI Another big #NorthSouth derby, but first we have it as a ‘curtain raiser’ 💪#Rugby 🏉#RugbyUnion🌍@TheCurrieCup 🏆@URCOfficial 🏅
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A good brand
The Bulls scored a combined total of 20 tries in their last two matches and White believes he has a game plan to beat any side in the play-offs.
“The last couple of weeks, not only have we won, but we have also played really well and we managed to get our game to the way we want to play it,” White explained.
“We know different games will ask different questions.
“The nice thing is that we have a lot of confidence in the style we are using. We know it’s a style that can beat any team we play against.
“We have played against Currie Cup teams, against Zebre and Leinster – although it was not their best team – yet we still managed to keep our structure.
“We still managed to keep the shape of the way we want to play.
“We are still focussed on the things we want to do well in and that again creates confidence and it creates clarity for us going into these play-offs.”
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