The Vodacom Bulls have made known, through their official Facebook Page, the names of the team to take on the Highlanders on Friday 11 April 2014.
As expected after the injuries to Dewald Potgieter and Deon Stegmann, who both have had to return to South Africa as a result of longer term injuries, Grant Hattingh gets the nod at No 8, with Jono Ross selected at openside flank (No 6) and with Jacques du Plessis at blindside flank (No 7).
Jacques “Vleis” Engelbrecht reverts to the bench.
As we’ve seen in the opening rounds of this year’s competition, Jono Ross struggles to fullfill the role of openside flanker and it might have been far more prudent to include either Wiaan Liebenberg or Wimpie van der Walt in this crucial position, to give the Bulls looseforward combination the vital balance required in the loosies.
Victor Matfield also returns to the starting lineup at No 5 lock, despite initial indications that he is on tour only as lock injury backup. Flip van der Merwe moves to No 4 lock and retains the captaincy, whilst Paul Willemse is relegated to the bench.
Good news for a lot of Bulls supporters is that William Small-Smith is included on the bench as utility back.
Vodacom Bulls: 15 Jurgen Visser, 14 Akona Ndungane, 13 J J Engelbrecht, 12 Jan Serfontein, 11 Bjorn Basson, 10 Jacques-Louis Potgieter, 9 Francois Hougaard, 8 Grant Hattingh, 7 Jacques du Plessis, 6 Jono Ross, 5 Victor Matfield, 4 Flip van der Merwe (Captain), 3 Werner Kruger, 2 Callie Visagie, 1 Dean Greyling
Replacements: 16 Bongi Mbonambi, 17 Marcel vd Merwe, 18 Paul Willemse, 19 Jacques Engelbrecht, 20 Piet van Zyl, 21 Handré Pollard, 22 William Small-Smith, 23 Morné Mellet.
Coach: Frans Ludeke
Team manager: Tim Dlulane
Date: Friday 11 April
Venue: Forsyth Barr Stadium, Dunedin
Kick-Off: 09: 35 SA Time (19:35 NZ Time, 17:35 GMT)
Referee: Rohan Hoffman (Australia)
Assistant Referees: Kane McBride (New Zealand), Shane McDermott (New Zealand)
TMO: Vinny Munro (New Zealand)
BUT we need to work on our ball retention, if we are going to lose the ball after about every 3 ruck, we might as well just kick.
@ Best:
I would also like Pollard to get more game time and some more flair in our backline.
But come on, it’s Bulls rugby, it is absolutely crucial that we (as well as pretty much every other team) needs an 80%+ kicker to be successful, Pollard just does not give us that at this stage.
@ MacroBull: Jacque LP kept us in game against Chiefs with kicks but that reliance was also our downfall. Two seasons ago against Brumbies in semi-final was same story. Bulls leading, rely on kicker to defend lead rather than attack try-line and force opposition into more defensive mode. Dewald was right to keep going for try on that occasion but instruction from coaches allowed Brumbies back into our danger zone. Bulls have bought strong attacking backline and must start using that to make teams re-think their strategy against us. Currently teams will give away the three points if they believe they can return favour with seven. If we up our try scoring percentage when in opposition twenty five we can do with less accurate goal kicker. Also the more Pollard kicks the better his stats will get.
Best wrote:
Woha what? I Agree Dewald was doing to right thing, but it was not just to coaching staff that wanted the kick at goal it was ALSO 50 000 people and 14 of his team mates on the field.
Best wrote:
I am not knocking Pollard down, I sincerely believe he is a great long term investment, but he kicked most of the currie cup and did not improve, staurday he also missed a sitter.
Above all we need a 80%+ kicker to be successful, this is not a hidden secret in superrugby.
We should not be brainwashed by other supporter about our “conservative, skop en jaag gameplan” and that we should play more attacking rugby.
Everyone else does it, just when we play to our game plan we well, we are unstoppable and we score plenty of tries.
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