I said it numerous times this season. Either someone is reading my posts or see it the way I see it. The Bulls are aiming to emulate the 7 times champions, the Crusaders. Mark Hinton from the Sunday Star Times in New Zealand wrote the following article.

Clinical. Cooly calculated. Doing what they have to when they have to, and understanding that this game is as much about pragmatism as it is magnetism. Are the Bulls the new Crusaders?

It would appear the men from the north-east of South Africa, 50km up the road from the metropolis of Jo’burg, are in the process of assuming the mantle held until recently by the indomitable Crusaders. In the process, quite possibly, of unveiling Super 14 rugby’s second dynasty.

Canes coach Colin Cooper calls it death by strangulation, and there’s no doubt that the Bulls have a sort of brutal force about them that can squeeze the life out of anyone who stands in their way.

Cooper’s Hurricanes felt it first hand in Pretoria early yesterday morning (NZ time) as they succumbed 18-19 despite a brave performance that mixed withering attack (first half) with tenacious defence (the second). The Bulls simply stuck their heads down and willed themselves to victory – their fifth straight of the new season and 15th on the trot on home soil since a defeat to the same Canes at Loftus on April 12, 2008.

Yesterday’s win in many ways was the exception that proves the rule. Having averaged just under 50 points for and nearly 35 against in their four matches hitherto, the Bulls showed they can grind it out as well as run and gun.

Despite being outscored two tries to one and looking for long periods the inferior side against a Hurricanes outfit desperate to avoid the doughnut in South Africa, the Bulls stuck to their plan, kept it simple and won through force of mind, as much as body.

“Tactically they play really well,” noted Cooper after his side barely saw the ball over the last quarter-hour. Once Morne Steyn’s fourth penalty put the South Africans in front for the first time with 13 minutes to go, it was game over.

“They’ve got a great nine and 10 and they play that type of game well. They’ve got a massive pack and they can just squeeze you out of the game.

“It’s quite intimidating,” Cooper added. “There’s altitude to deal with, a massive crowd to deal with, and it felt like we had everything against us. That’s why I was so proud of the way we hung in there, particularly on defence and with our discipline.

“We’ll have to review why they were able to strangle us the way they did. If we’d been ahead they would have had to play some rugby, but we didn’t play tactically the way we wanted to. They put the pressure on us under the high ball and then we’d kick it out and they’d go back to that lineout drive which we also struggled with.”

As well as the Hurricanes played – and they were streets ahead of the side that folded lamely to the Cheetahs and Stormers the previous fortnight – it was hard not to be impressed by Victor Matfield and his Bulls.

Matfield, like the Blues’ Keven Mealamu, marked his 100th Super rugby appearance with a victory, but when the Canes led 12-0 early, 18-10 soon after halftime, and still had their noses in front heading into the final quarter, that had looked a dodgy outcome.

But here’s where the Bulls demonstrated the sort of qualities that took the Crusaders to seven Super rugby titles between 1998 and 2008. The Cantabs won so many big matches during that period by simply finding ways to win when they had no right to. Remember the 2000 final against the Brumbies in Canberra when the Red and Blacks made about a thousand tackles and had about 1% of the pill, yet still got up 20-19? Countless other times they’d be outplayed everywhere but on the scoreboard.

It was no fluke either. The Crusaders would mix rigid discipline with rigorous defence; they’d feast on your errors, and grind you down with their determination. Not every week. Sometimes they’d put it all together and just destroy you, and the odd time they’d have an off day and get sat on their bums, but more often that not, when it was tight they were the side who got it right.

It may be too soon to suggest the Crusaders’ day is over, for there’s every indication they’ll be there or thereabouts again this year, but there’s no doubt the Bulls are compiling a similar sort of reputation.

They have won two of the last three titles, and are well on the way to making that three from four. Many believe if they get home advantage for the finals – and their looming four-game road trip should determine that – they are home and hosed. South Africa is abuzz with their deeds.

There are other similarities with the very good Crusaders sides of the Nineties and Noughties that underline this.

The Bulls have a vital mix of savvy veteran players – think Matfield, Fourie du Preez, the injured Bakkies Botha, Danie Rossouw, Gary Botha and Gurthro Steenkamp – and emerging young stars – Morne Steyn and Pierre Spies are there, the likes of Gerhard van den Heever, Stephan Dippenaar, Dewald Potgiete and Deon Stegmann are well on their way.

This year they lost superstar Bryan Habana to the Stormers and everyone wondered how they’d manage. Like the Crusaders, they have demonstrated vividly that quality players can come and go, yet their style remains a constant.

Their structured tactical play is also Crusaders-like. The Bulls have only two go-to parts of their game – the high ball and furious chase; or the rolling maul that, as the Canes discovered, can be near impossible to halt legally – yet they do them so well that they suffice.

They also have an ability to punish sides for their errors and off turnovers that was a Crusaders trademark, and have an accurate kicking game – from hand, and at goal – that is another prerequisite of championship-level sides.

Plus their home is a fortress. The Crusaders once won 26 straight home games between 2004 and ’07. These Bulls are at 15, and counting.

Remember this once was a team that was a laughing stock of Super rugby. The Beat-a-Bulls their critics used to call them. Misera-Bull, their brand of rugby was tagged.

Not now. These pragmatic South Africans have turned the corner, and it’s everybody else who’s chasing them. It should be some pursuit.