Impressive. Awesome. And just a little foreboding. Watching the Bulls pick apart the crumbling Crusaders with ruthless efficiency in the early hours of Sunday, it was hard not to feel humbled and slightly horrified.

Especially when you’d gone to bat for the Crusaders, the way I had.

Oops!

Especially when you’d bagged the Bulls for resting pretty much their entire starting XV for their “dead rubber” final round-robin match in Cape Town, the way I had.

Double oops!

So it’s here where I say to Bulls fans – many of whom have already corresponded in their trademark forthright manner – that I was wrong and you were right.

Well, sort of.

I stand by my assertion that the Crusaders could have won this semifinal if they had got the equation spot on. But they got nowhere near that, flinching badly under the high-ball blowtorch applied by the Bulls, and also failing miserably to execute efficiently when they were able to breach the defence.

You can’t grass as much ball as the Crusaders did – some of it not even challenged – and expect to have a hope against a side like the Bulls who not only feast on such opportunities, but sense any weakening of the resolve like the predators they are.

And the New Zealanders would have known that they had to strike when opportunities presented. You can’t play catchup against this side; when they land a blow, you’ve got to hit back.

Too often the Crusaders put themselves into position to do just that, but couldn’t hammer home the final nail. Eventually the relentless pressure, and the Bulls’ uncanny ability to keep points ticking over, wore down the Kiwis,

And to concede a try when the ball bounces off a player’s head, well, frankly, that’s unforgiveable. I’m sure the Crusaders’ youngsters – of which there were a few – would have learned a lot from the semifinal. Unfortunately they weren’t quite up to the challenge.

Not that they didn’t try.

The Crusaders, a shadow of their former selves in many respects but certainly not on the ticker front, battled manfully through their horror start and even gave themselves a half a chance early in the second spell when they closed within a half-dozen points.

But that’s when the classy denizens of this Bulls outfit came to the fore. Victor Matfield, Fourie du Preez and Morne Steyn were awesome over the run home. They landed the killer blows. They sent the Crusaders tumbling to the canvas.

So, did that make the Bulls’ decision to rest all their frontline players for the final round-robin match right?

Well, tactically it certainly did. And really there was never any argument about that. At the end of a tough campaign, it was always going to be in their interests to give their starters a welcome week off.

Whether it was morally right to basically default a match as they did I would still question, but given the way his men responded in the semifinal, there can be no doubt that Frans Ludeke read the situation perfectly.

So, well done to the Bulls, and surely now they will go on and claim a third title in four years to well and truly claim the crown once held by the Crusaders as the kings of this competition.

It should be a ripper final between easily the two best teams in the championship. That much has been pretty evident from about the halfway mark on.

The Stormers are a fine team, too, and their defensive fortitude is remarkable. In Schalk Burger, Andries Bekker, Peter Grant and Bryan Habana they have the class, and the whippy Juan de Jongh looks a real comer.

But something tells me that the Bulls will carry the day simply on their ability to apply pressure and their established game-plan that works so well in these big matches.

What does concern me as a New Zealander, though, is what the clear superiority of the two South African teams means from a more far-reaching perspective.

Former All Black and highly respected commentator Grant Fox tells me he believes there is no correlation between Super 14 ascendancy and Tri-Nations success.

I’m not so sure.

Looking at the depth that exists in the South African game right now -that team to take on Wales is a classic example of that – and more importantly the quality of performers there are across the board, it’s hard to see how the Boks aren’t raging favourites for the Tri-Nations.

Injuries are inevitable as this season rolls into action, and right now the Springboks are a heck of a lot more equipped to deal with them than the All Blacks are. Never mind those improving Aussies, who will also be dangers this year.

It’s hard to think of a position where South Africa doesn’t have at least a couple of world-class options at their disposal at the moment, and this will be vital as they build towards the World Cup.

When you combine the best of the Bulls and Stormers, and throw in a couple of quality performers like John Smit and Juan Smith for good measure, frankly the Boks scare me. Contrast that with the lack of options, and form performers, that Graham Henry has at his disposal.

The All Blacks have more immediate concerns on the radar in the looming Irish and Welsh challenges, but if the last few weeks have reminded us of anything, it’s that the Boks are coming to get us again in 2010. And they’re just as big and scary as ever.