VIDEO: 'It's not all doom and gloom' for Jake White
REACTION: Despite shooting themselves in the foot on several occasions against the Lions, Jake White believes his Bulls team were also “unlucky” not to have won more comfortably.
The Bulls battled their way to an unconvincing 30-28 win at Loftus Versfeld on Saturday.
It was a match in which the two Gauteng teams were only two points apart at different stages.
The Lions also could have snatched victory with a late Jordan Hendrikse long-range penalty, but the young flyhalf was unsuccessful with his attempt.
Both teams scored three tries in the match, but White believes there could have been more from his team.
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“We were a bit unlucky. On one occasion, Embrose [Papier] chips that ball over and if it bounces for him, he scores.
“There was a time when we went down the wing with Sebastian de Klerk and he passed on his inside and David [Kriel] knocked it on.
“There were enough opportunities where we could have scored more points if we hung onto the ball and built pressure.
“It is not all doom and gloom. We scored three tries.
“The only thing which I will take out of this game is that we worked really hard to score three and they scored three from our errors and our bad judgment calls.”
White added: “Antoine Dupont has a wonderful thing where he waits 10 metres back from a long kick. David Kriel waited and went up and got penalised for offside.
“If you watch a game in international rugby, it is allowed.
“They [Lions] kick the ball out, they get a line-out over the top and they score under the poles, so it’s a seven-point swing. Those are things we are going to have to be sharp on.
“If that’s how they [referees] are going to interpret those things, then we got to be a little more streetwise.”
White admits it was a bit of a mixed bag when it came to the set-pieces.
“They [Lions] got a good set-piece and they are good at scrumming. I suppose I was a bit disappointed with the inconsistency of our group,” White explained.
“In one scrum we are really good and in the next scrum, we just do it on our own.
“I thought our line-out was strong and we won the last line-out on their ball.”
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