The Bulls hosted the Brumbies at Loftus, Pretoria late this afternoon. This is the match thread for discussion of the game. The match was broadcast on SuperSport 1 on DSTV in SA. The Bulls won in impressive style, going away at the end and easily bagging full 5 Log Points to move alone to the top of the Super 14 table. They denied the Brumbies from any log points in the process. The Final score was Bulls 50 / 32.
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from the Bulls web site, the following:
The Bulls gave their home supporters plenty to shout about in their opening Vodacom Super 14 match at Fortress Loftus, scoring five tries after overcoming a determined Brumbies side, who had a 27-20 lead after 50 minutes of play.
Seventeen points in ten minutes not only edged the Bulls ahead, but secured the bonus point as well as the Bulls racked up 50 points for the second consecutive week.
The win keeps the Bulls on top of the Super 14 log after week two, but some early Bulls errors and some good phase play had the Brumbies in the lead in the opening quarter.
They scored two tries, with Steyn’s boot the only answer from the Bulls.
Tries by Fourie du Preez and Steyn before the break gave the Bulls the lead, but a late penalty by Stirling Mortlock gave his side a 21-20 advantage at the break.
A long range drop goal by Matt Giteau and another Mortlock effort saw the lead stretch again in the second stanza, but once Gerhard van den Heever pouched a stray Brumbies pass and ran 35 meter to score under the sticks, the Bulls never looked back.
Wynand Olivier then scored a great try after some strong scrumming by the pack had the Brumbies on the back foot and Steyn did the rest.
A late Brumbies try gave the score line some respectability, but Brumbies coach Andy Friend admitted that they came up well short on the night.
My visit to the Press Conference after the match:
Brumbies coach Andy friend and captain Stephen Hoyles attended the Press Conference on behaf of the Brumbies.
Andy Friend is a soft-spoken but determined fellow, does not mince his words and answers questions with openness and without hesitation, same with Hoyles, no bullshit, just straight answers.
I asked wheter the current “New Interpretation” of the Laws will continue causing high scoring games, as has been seen in quite a few of the matches of the first 2 rounds. Both Andy and Stephen praised the new application of the Laws and said clearly that this is how they want to play, that it suits the Bumbies style of play and rewards the attacking side.
When I asked what Hoyles sees as their biggest place where they, as a Team, should improve, it was without hesitation that they MUST improve their dicipline… not give away so many penalties.
In general, the Brumbies were lavish in their praise of the Bulls and the way the Bulls play.
For the Bulls, coach Frans Ludeke, captain Victor Matfield, centurion Perie Wannenburg and man of the match Morné Steyn attended the Press Conference.
Firstly, what utterly approachable fellows these gentlemen ALL are, they are jovial, not arroant… and answers questions without dodging anything. Victor already had some “Hippy Jeans” & floppies and a T-shirt on, laid back as they come! They were obviously happy with the game and with the first 2 rounds.
When asked about the “New Rules Application” of the Laws, it is clear they fully embrace them and are basing their game plans accordingly.
Pedrie was humble about his milestone of 100 Super14 matches and says that he feels that there are still aspects of his game he needs to improve.
I asked Morné Steyn whether, having scored 3 tries already in this Super 14, he is focussing on his attacking game this season and his answer was clear…. he praised his forwards and Team for creating the opportunities and only plays his normal game.
I asked Frans about injury situations and when we could expect Bakkies, Dewalt, Akona ect back. It seems Dewalt Potgieter will be back within a week and Bakkies and Chilliboy is only due in 4 weeks.
All in all, the Bulls are confident, yet serious, with feet securely grounded.
Scores:
Bulls: 5 Penalties & 5 Conversions & 2 Tries Morne Steyn, 1 Try Fourie du Preez, 1 Try Gerhard van den Heever, 1 Try Wynand Olivier
Brumbies: 4 Penalties & 1 Conversion Stirling Mortlock, 1 Try Rocky Elsom, 1 Try George Smith, 1 Drop Matt Giteau, 1 Try Pat McCabe
Teams:
Bulls: 15 Zane Kirchner, 14 Gerhard van den Heever, 13 Stephan Dippenaar, 12 Wynand Olivier, 11 Francois Hougaard, 10 Morné Steyn, 9 Fourie du Preez, 8 Pierre Spies, 7 Pedrie Wannenburg, 6 Deon Stegmann, 5 Victor Matfield (captain), 4 Flip van der Merwe, 3 Werner Kruger, 2 Gary Botha, 1 Gurthrö Steenkamp.
Replacements: 16 Bandise Maku, 17 Bees Roux, 18 Fudge Mabeta, 19 Derick Kuün, 20 Heini Adams, 21 Jacques-Louis Potgieter, 22 John Mametsa.
Brumbies: 15 Adam Ashley-Cooper, 14 Pat McCabe, 13 Stirling Mortlock, 12 Christian Lealiifano, 11 Francis Fainifo, 10 Matt Giteau, 9 Josh Valentine, 8 Stephen Hoiles (captain), 7 George Smith, 6 Rocky Elsom, 5 Mark Chisholm, 4 Justin Harrison, 3 Salesi Ma’afu, 2 Stephen Moore, 1 Ben Alexander.
Replacements: 16 Huia Edmonds, 17 Guy Shepherdson, 18 Ben Hand, 19 Mitchell Chapman, 20 Patrick Phibbs, 21 Matt Toomua, 22 Tyrone Smith.
Referee: Mark Lawrence (South Africa)
Assistant referees: Marius Jonker (South Africa), Stefan Breytenbach (South Africa)
TMO: Johann Meuwesen (South Africa)
Puma, I have a sneaky suspicion that the Du Plessies brothers are causing kuk in the Shark tank. Trying to usurp John Smit IMO. Whatever it is, they looked like a team of 15 amateur individuals on the field. Not like a champion team at all!
22 – Winston, The Durbs people don’t go if the weather is awful. That is a fact as they love the party there too. The rugby and the party on the back fields go hand in hand. If there is rain you get less people there. Think that day it was because of the bad weather.
Now with us losing so much, the Tank will get less and less supporters going this season. Sad that but true.
Yeah,I can believe how clueless we look,what worries the most is that we seem to have no game plan at the moment and our backline looks so impotent,if we dont gets things right which I dont see happening I can see some heads rolling at the Shark Union..
28
Ek joke ook maar , ek was ook maar min kere daar , dis ver van my af, ek pick gewoonlik n game en maak dan reelings daarom.
Amper was ons joernalis GBS nie in die persbox nie. Oppad Loftus toe praat ek en hy nog so lekker toe hy skielik se hy moet afskakel.
5 polisiemanne wil hom net toesluit, na n halfuur se gesukkel waarvan hy ons seker sal vertel later is hy darem los. Amper het hy Brakpan se ryspanne geproe.
Hy is seker nou amper daar op Fortress Loftus.
This is a good evening for Super 14. 3 Of the teams that will be in the top 6 at the end of the year is playing tonight. Who wants to guess who those 3 will be…?
31 – GG, Really not sure what is up there. I hear things last really. So have no clue. If the Dup brothers are the cause then I for one would rather they go. Really not even sure that is the cause. We just not playing well. Scrum looked good with John back at hooker. If I was Plum I would just play John at hooker and Bissie from the bench.
Now just hope that Stormers and Bulls have huge games today. We need two saffa teams up there in the semi and it looks at this point only the Stormers and Bulls will be able to do it. Then who knows Cheetahs and Lions could have a really great tour and play well too. Hoping for all the saffa teams to do well. Only for now don’t see the Sharks being one of them. Sad to say that but have to be realistic. I will still support my team no matter what. Lose or win. They are my team.
I think that the Shark coach is to blame, or the people contracting players. Sometime a good player can disturb the whole synergy of the team.
No faith in certain players or senior players getting involved in team pick. All a lot of speculations but there is something seriously amiss.
33 – Winston, I feel the same mate.
must add to
Sometime a good player can disturb the whole synergy of the team.if that player is a disruptive player like Luke 😆
9 – Sharky…….hehehehe. Think GBS was supporting his bru picks more than anything else.
Really disappointed in our team. We just not doing it at all.
37 – Super, Yip something does not seem right. We have some real talent in our team. Should be doing a whole lot better.
I miss Frans Steyn. He is a huge, huge loss at inside centre and that huge boot of his too. What I would do to have him back in SA playing. Even Barritt. How we lost such great talent is crazy at the Sharks.
puma hiyas brudda
mate the sharks did show much improvement and im sorry to have to cry about a ref , but when kaplan went off i knew and even told GBS so that this would be a huge problem
anyhows they need to get themselves out of this mess and rebuild
and as for GBS , he a good bloke mate, and was a pleasure to meet him
Super, wat? wou hulle die webmonster opsluit? hoe so?
Puma, 36. No, Im really just guessing about the Dups cause, well, a while ago they where kinda threating that they want to play for a team where they are alway in the starting team. Or something like that… and then this week Ollie le Roux, who has some very public bad blood with JS backs the Dups as the best players in SA.
Take into consideration that when JS plays, either one of the Dups won’t start, it makes for an interesting theory…
puma we knew this would happen lol dont be surprised
@42 Tjarky
I have to agree, that ref did not help the Sharks cause at all. And they did play better the more the game progressed, but still hey…
Put it this way. If I told you last year middle of the season that the Sharks will lose to the Cheetahs at home in 2010, would you, or would you not, have laughed at me?
Green point mate hiyas . i used to mix quite a bit with the players of old at the sharks when i stayed in durban and i can tell you Ollie is a lying piece of shit along with twatson
they used to cause so much crap in the change rooms
and this is not hearsay its a fact , thats also why twatson was asked to go and ollie left in bad blood too
lol gunner its one of those things , i only hope they pull themselves out of this hole quickly
@43, Im really just talking kuk, probably nothing in it.
Shary, I know, I read JS’s book, and when someone says something bad about someone else in his autobiography, its always 10 times worse than in real life.
Anyway, like I said, it’s just talk, but it does look like there are 15 player with 20 different agendas on the field.
gunner lol actually at that time there was lots in it
eish GBS is prolly sloshed on all that slet sappies at moftus 😆
43
Yes , that was close. He needed all his lawyer skills today.
42 – Sharky, I felt the same when Kaplan went off. Was watching with my neighbours one a Lions Supporter and the other a Bulls supporter. They felt the same. Both said here starts the trouble. Really don’t want to blem the ref but our team looked okay at times and then totally out of it.
What happened with the Cheetahs try there? We were asleep. Ran through us as if we were not even there? With that try alone Cheetahs deserved the win. How could we let a player run from their own line all the way to score a try? How useless was our defence there?
Pity Rory never had his kicking boots on. Those missed kicks cost us 8 points, but we have to score more tries.
Just feel a bit pessimistic about our tour coming up. I know the Saders had lost 3 games once and went on to win it. Just that we are not them and of course if we were playing the bottom teams over there would feel a lot more positive. We play all the top teams on our tour. So if we can not win at home don’t see us winning much over there. Watch now that Saders had a huge loss yesterday, they will bring back McCaw for next weeks game. Think he was only supposed to start the following game. Now they may need him for the Sharks game. Don’t see us winning that one or any of the games there. Jeepers I am really being hard on our team now. Just trying to find the positives but see none at this stage.
How is Lambie? Rob said he played FH yesterday in the game before the Sharks game? I would give the youngster a go if Ruan got injured before the guy they brought in from England. We need to build our youngsters. Know this player from England is only here temporary, but this is S14 and so much faster than anything up in the NH.
How I miss Fransie. Will say that often as we were just plain daft to let him go.
This is the longest hour, the one before the Bulls start the game. Not that this is too serious , but i would like a Bulls win.
Helloooooooooooooo
Ja, SuperBul is right, 5 bloody policemen in a van pulled me off for talking to SuperBul on the farking Cellphone… and they wanted to bloody arrest me…. seriaaaaas!
I told them their focus was wrong, why don’t they go look for some criminals…
Anyway after about 25 minutes of hassle and haggle, they had had their fun and let me go… the asswipes were probably looking for me to bribe them, but I don’t fall for kak like that.
So, SAPS…. take note…. once again your members are not serving the community, they would rather take pleasure in haggling innocent people than go do the right thing…. catch some farking criminals…
I got their names, I got the registration number of the van, we’ll see who has fun with whom…. and who laughs last!
54 – Super, Should win this one.
GO BULLS. Good luck to your team Super.
55 – GBS, Serious? Jeepers hope you okay after that fright boet. This is SA anything can happen.
Now enjoy the game. Go Bulls. Hoping with a bonus point too.
57@ Puma – Dead serious…
But anyway, I’m here in the Press Box, JJ Harmse is sitting directly behind me (I chose myself a prime spot in the front row, nobody in front of me)…. as if I’m an old Journalist!!
There is a website now where one can report all this harassments by the Police. Will find it and post it sometime.
GBS glad you are there safely, now enjoy a sletsappie and relax.
Invite Harmse to RT we want someone giving us unbiased opinions on the Sharks, Cheetahs and especial y the Lions.
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