VIDEO: Jake on stupidity, smartness and that scrum
The Bulls managed to pull the proverbial rabbit out of the hat in beating Leinster, in a Round 13 United Rugby Championship clash at Loftus at the weekend.
However, Director of Rugby Jake White admitted it wasn’t a perfect performance.
The final straw that broke the camel’s back (read Leinster) was the massive scrum in extra time.
The replacement front row of Jan-Hendrik Wessels, Johan Grobbelaar and Mornay Smith produced the scrum of their lives to win a penalty between the 10-metre and 22-metre lines.
That was the fightback the Bulls needed and White was over the moon with the way in which his team fought to the bitter end.
That 21-20 over the table-topping Leinster ended the Irish team’s winning streak in the URC.
But White lamented the multitude of mistakes, especially in the first half.
Then there was also a yellow and red card dished out to Alulutho Tshakweni for a dangerous grass-cutter tackle and Sebastian de Klerk for taking out a player in the air.
“Most teams might have thought: ‘That’s it, game gone’,” White said.
“Most teams would’ve accepted that Leinster would’ve finished the game off,” he added.
“And they didn’t.
“What price do you put on a team that says: ‘Forget it, we are going to get a scrum penalty here’?
“And that is all I was asking. Just make sure that we are desperate to get a result.
“I want to see for 80 minutes that you are desperate for a result. I don’t want to see anything else.
“We needed a scrum penalty in the last play of the game, and they needed to put the ball in and out, and kick the ball out.
“And after some resets, we managed to get the penalty,” the Bulls boss added.
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But he was brutally honest in his assessment – pointing out the mistakes, poor handling and poor decisions, especially in the first half.
White puts it down to a lack of game smartness – something a coach cannot teach a player.
It comes with maturity and a will to do better.
“I’m not going to condone red cards, yellow cards and stupidity.
“When we get to the knockout stages, we will lose those games.
“We need to be smarter.
“We can’t be stupid and think that we are going to get to the back end of the competition and win it if we don’t make better decisions in those situations.
“It’s stupid things, stupid – unbelievably stupid.
“New Zealanders talk about game smartness, and I think that it is the bottom line.
“You’ve got to understand where you are on the field, what the score is, what your job is.
“That smartness is also something a player has to learn. You can’t coach him every single thing about his role.
“The maul try and the yellow card. There is a lot of effort in that. You know how tired you get when you have maul, scrum, maul, scrum.
“I’m proud of the way they fought, and the bench came on and made an impact.
“But I’m also not sweeping anything under the table.
“And the reality is that it’s just because of our actions. Four times we’ve given penalties away for playing the nine – three of those were yellow cards.
“We played the guy in the air: red card. You take everything away from the effort the other guys put in to get back in the game.”
But to grind out a win when it all looked over and done with is a testament to a side that never gave up hope and kept on fighting.
“For 80 minutes, even with 14 men, they found a way to win. And let’s be fair – that’s what sport is about.
“The good far outweighs the negative.”
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