The succession battle for the captaincy of the Bulls will begin in earnest in the next few weeks as the former defending Super Rugby champions look for a worthy leader to take over the leadership reins from outgoing Bulls captain, Victor Matfield.

IOLSport – Vata Ngobeni

While the Bulls would not be drawn into talking about frontrunners at the moment in the aftermath of their failure to secure a place in the Super Rugby play-offs, there are a handful of prime candidates whose names have been banded about.

Springboks Chiliboy Ralepelle, Dewald Potgieter and Pierre Spies lead the chase for the captain’s role in the team while Wynand Olivier and even Flip van der Merwe could also be in with a shout.

The Bulls will be under immense pressure to appoint Ralepelle who has long been touted to be the next and first black Springbok captain after John Smit’s tenure comes to an end after the World Cup.

Ralepelle is also a homegrown hooker having gone to school at Pretoria Boys’ High School where he captained the first team for two years with great success and in recent weeks Ralepelle has quickly become one of Loftus Versfeld’s favourite sons.

Potgieter, though, has also been groomed for captaincy since joining the Bulls from his high school days in Port Elizabeth where he captained his school Daniel Pienaar and Eastern Province at Craven Week for two successive years.

Spies, on the other hand, has Bulls blood coursing through his veins with his late father and namesake having played for the Bulls while Spies also captained another famous Pretoria school in Afrikaanse Hoër Seunskool and the Blue Bulls Craven Week side.

Matfield’s eight year tenure as the leader of the herd came to an end at the painful conclusion of the Bulls Super Rugby campaign on Saturday when the Bulls lost to the Sharks.

Matfield confirmed towards the end of last year that he would be hanging up his boots after this year’s Rugby World Cup in New Zealand while Matfield’s long time vice captain, Fourie du Preez, will also be leaving the Bulls to take up a lucrative contract in Japan.

Along with Du Preez other long-time Bulls servants Bakkies Botha and Danie Rossouw will also be leaving the Franchise at the conclusion of the World Cup while another stalwart of Bulls rugby and last year’s Currie Cup captain, Gary Botha, is also leaving at the end of the year to take up a contract in France.

However, Frans Ludeke will be under pressure to name a captain for the upcoming Currie Cup season which could be either one of three players in Gary Botha, Derick Kuun or Dewald Potgieter.

As things stand Frans Ludeke is caught between a rock and a hard place and will have to wait until the first week of next month to appoint a Currie Cup captain in consultation with the Bulls new Currie Cup coach who is likely to be Pine Pienaar.

Pienaar’s appointment to the role of Blue Bulls Currie Cup coach is yet to be confirmed by the Blue Bulls Company but speculation is rife that the Free State Vodacom Cup and under-21 coach will be unveiled at the beginning of July amongst some of the anticipated minor coaching changes to be made at Loftus.

Derick Kuun, who is also set to hang up his boots at the end of the year to take up his passion of farming, is surely going to be in the reckoning for the Currie Cup captaincy job.

But the pressing issue for Ludeke will be who will take over the reins as Super rugby and Currie Cup captain for next year and beyond?