Deon Stegmann
Dean Greyling
The Vodacom Bulls, need a complete rethink of their game approach and selection criteria, after a loss on the weekend against the DHL Stormers once again exposed why the Bulls will keep struggling.
The answer is simple… scrum penalties are destrying Bulls chances left, right and centre – and 1 prop in particular, Dean Greyling, cost the Bulls the difference between a win and a loss on the weekend.
No less than 9 easy penalty points can directly be ascribed to Dean Greyling’s inability to scrum correctly and legally. It is not a new thing either, he has picked up a plethera of scrum penalties in the last number of seasons and his general scrumming technique at loosehead prop has always been severely flawed. He is simply put, a scrumming liability, and is exploited at scrum time week after week by every Tom, Dick and Harry who plays against him!
Dean picked up 4 crucial scrum penalties on the weekend, but Marcel van der Merwe also picked up an additional 3 scrum penalties. That means 7 scrum penallties, which were either put into points against the Bulls or which robbed them of valuable possession and territory.
In anybody’s book, bar maybe in the crumpled “Book of Fools & Favourites” of Bulls coach Frans Ludeke, it is seen as a HUGE problem!
Things looked radically better in the 2nd half, when Morné Mellett was at loosehead prop and Trevor Nyakane at tighthead prop.
In addition to the clear prop and scrumming conundrum at the Bulls, one needs to start questioning the validity of continuing with Deon Stegmann at openside flank, as he is also a huge penalty offender! When Lappies Labuschagne replaced Stegmann at openside flank and Arno Botha replaced Jacques du Plessis at blindside flank, the Bulls suddenly entered their most productive and least penalized period of the match and the ground ball and breakdown situation control swung nicely in favour of the Bulls, so much so that the Bulls effectively ‘WON’ the 2nd half battle on the scoreboard, by 10 points to 3 and coming within a whisker of stealing the honours at the end of the game.
If these basic and fundamental aspects are not fixed, and immediately so, one can already start writing “Also-Runs 2015” on the shirt of every Bulls player and on every Bulls supporter’s jersey, alongside that tag which is already emblazened there for 2011, 2012, 2013 and 2014!
Big Scalps needed:
The weekend defeat at Newlands means the Bulls will have to claim some big scalps on tour to make the Super Rugby play-offs this year.
The Pretoria outfit now face a tough scrap to play knock-out rugby this season with their Australasian tour featuring matches against the Blues, Chiefs, Brumbies and Melbourne Rebels still to come.
Frans Ludeke’s team lost all 4 of their games on their overseas tour last season, and if they do manage to win some away games and make the play-offs in 2015, it seems likely that they will have to travel some more.
Ludeke said that the narrow defeat to the Stormers had simplified the equation for his team, starting with their last game at home before the tour against the Lions next week.
“It is actually easy, we need to go and win away on tour. Obviously 1st of all we have to get back on the horse against the Lions at home.
“The tour will look after itself, if you look forward it is vital and you definitely know that it is going to be crucial.
“We have got a different finish from all the other seasons with 4 away games, but we are looking forward to it,” he said.
The Bulls coach said that while he was frustrated with the inconsistencies at scrum-time, he was encouraged by the way his side were able to put the Stormers’ line-out under pressure and credited ‘technician’ Victor Matfield for his input.
“The pressure we applied at the lineout gave us some field position and we just needed to convert that into chances to score.
“They are working as a unit and really starting to apply some pressure there, it is satisfying,” he said.
Bulls captain Pierre Spies said that with his side finishing stronger the charge down of Handré Pollard’s last-minute drop-goal attempt had been particularly tough to swallow.
“I think if he put it over it would have been great, but if we look at it now if we had held on to the ball for a few more phases I thought we could have gotten away with a penalty somewhere or we might have gotten a try.
“Those are the chances in a game and obviously the Stormers have a good defence but I thought we put them under pressure when we ran at them,” he said.
(rugby365)
Scrum Rethink:
The Vodacom Bulls know if they have to fix 1 thing this week, it has to be their scrum.
Saturday’s narrow Vodacom Super Rugby loss against the DHL Stormers exposed the frailty of their setpiece once again, along with the folly that coaches believe they can get away with a prop who is a ball-carrying specialist as opposed to one that can hold his own in the setpiece.
The Bulls leaked at least 9 points from the scrum – and their props Dean Greyling (4) and Marcel van der Merwe (3) – were responsible for most of the penalties against them.
Things were steady in the 2nd half with the appearance of Trevor Nyakane and Morne Mellett, but by that time the die had been cast.
There has been a lot of anger in the Bulls camp regarding Jaco Peyper’s 2nd half performance, when he allowed the Stormers props to scrum in and not set square in any scrums, but by then the referee had already made his mind up about who was infringing in the scrums.
While it brings up a separate debate about the impact of the setpiece and referee interpretations, the Bulls know all too well the difference between winning and losing a contest like this was squarely their setpiece’s fault.
Bulls scrum coach Wessel Roux has done a lot of work in the past few years, taking the Bulls away from their mantle as the most penalised scrum in the competition to one that has performed admirably this season.
But most of that has been because of personnel. The introduction of Trevor Nyakane at tighthead has been an unexpected bonus and has made the former Free Stater a much more valuable proposition than the Bulls had anticipated.
While it has worked to Nyakane’s advantage, the question must be asked if it is fair to the Bulls prop to be moved between loosehead and tighthead all the time. He did initially struggle when going back into his former position at Newlands.
Yet the desire of the Bulls to play a ball-carrier in Greyling cost them dearly, as it has so many times before in past seasons, and this time the indiscretions were easily turned into points.
That isn’t saying Greyling doesn’t have his strong points. A good defender and a strong ball-carrier he is, but scrumming is his primary job and the way the Stormers got the upper hand on the Bulls’ scrum should be cause for concern for any team.
There is a belief that the Bulls strongest scrum is Nyakane back at loosehead, with Van der Merwe at tighthead, but the Bulls have shifted their props around so much this season that this combination has hardly played together at all.
Instead, they have chosen to use Nyakane at tighthead for most of the matches, often playing him above Van der Merwe and getting good work from Nyakane in the process.
However, the business end of the competition is fast approaching and the Bulls have already learnt the hard way that the margin for error in the competition is minor. A slip-up from a kick-off against the Lions cost them victory in that game, and at Newlands it was simply Greyling’s indiscretions in the scrum.
While on a lot of occasions the referee interpretation has a lot to do with it, this weekend it was simply solid 1st half domination from Frans Malherbe, Stormers tighthead prop.
Bull coach Frans Ludeke admitted that they will need to look at the scrum again – but made the point that they didn’t get the reward in the 2nd half.
“We will have a look at ourselves,” Ludeke admitted about the scrum.
“There were times that we were offside with the referee and times when we should have got the reward. That’s all you want is consistency in decision-making. In the end we had them under huge pressure. They were standing up and folding in, there were hands on the ground, but that is the nature of the contest.”
Ludeke made mention that the Bulls didn’t get the reward, and especially in the 2nd half there were a few scrum penalties that clearly could have gone the other way.
Peyper had made his mind up by then, and the Bulls suffered as a result.
But the Pretoria side knew the strength of the Stormers’ scrum, and could have selected a stronger starting unit, so they have only themselves to blame.
(SuperSport)
Fitness Report:
Victor Matfield
Jan Serfontein
Vodacom Bulls stalwarts Victor Matfield and Jan Serfontein both returned to the training field on Monday as the team prepare for their Vodacom Super Rugby match against the Emirates Lions at Loftus Versfeld on Saturday.
Matfield is back in action after a medical procedure on his knee and will be considered for the weekend, while Serfontein, who was a late withdrawal against the DHL Stormers due to a hamstring niggle, will also be ready to take his place.
Rudy Paige and Jacques-Louis Potgieter is still out of action due to a knee injury and hamstring strain, but should be fit to travel with the team when they depart for their Australasian trip on Sunday.
Pierre Schoeman (knee, 15 July), Bandise Maku (pectoral, 31 July), Carlo Engelbrecht (ankle, 31 May), Werner Kruger (ankle, 11 May), Duncan Matthews (knee, 31 August), Ruan Steenkamp (knee, 31 July), Ryan Nell (knee, 31 August) remains on the long term injury list.
“Dean picked up 4 crucial scrum penalties on the weekend, but Marcel van der Merwe also picked up an additional 3 scrum penalties”
Didn’t watch it so relied on reading hear about it after, interesting that so much focus was on Greyling and the penalties he conceded but not much has been made of Marcel vd Merwe also conceding nearly the same amount of penalties. Also read elsewhere that someone thought one of the penalties that Greyling conceded that cost 3 points should have been blown the other way. It is not good to have players in your team that give away so many penalties but it makes it even harder if the refs are not blowing it correctly all the time. It seems scrums are lottery calls at times but I guess having serial offenders in the scrum may skew things in the refs mind and then lead them to just always assume the one team is offending even if they are not…
I don’t know the history of the poster but judging from the content of the post it seems like the person knows what they are talking about (or maybe my technical knowledge of the game is a bit lacking so I am easily swayed) and seems to put across quite a balanced view. This is what someone wrote on Blue Bulls page and what drew my attention to the penalties vd Merwe also conceded, some interesting discussion around possible reason for the scrum woes:
“Nou net weer die game gekyk.
Hoewel die penalties teen.Dean geregverdig kan word het Jaco oaar growwe foute gemaak met die fluitjie. Strafskop.nr 3 met telling op 0-6 moes reverse penalty gewees het. Ruan Botha val met sy knieg binne in Dean se gesig in en.druk sy kop met die vuis plat teen die grond. Dit gebeur reg voor Peyper.
Deon stegman se penalty waar hy vir Groom tackle by ruck is baie twyfelagtig. Groom.het aan Bal geraak en bal was nie binne agterste speler se voete nie. Dus was die bal uit. Verlede naweek.het dieselfe Peyper Reinach en kie toegelaat om sulke balle te steel by die Bulls by meer as een geleentheid.
Die Bulle kry in 64ste minuut vryskop nadat Stormers 2 keer voor die tyd skrum en nog voor die bal ingegooi word alreeds inskrum op die vaskop vd Bulle. (Kitschoff). Id 1ste helfde is ook vryskop toegeken aan Die Bulls vir presies dieslefde oortreding. In my oë moes daardie die vryskop toe al strafskop gewees het.
In die 76ste minuut met Bulle op die aanval is Ntubeni onkant op verdediging. Presies dieselfde strafskop is teen.die Bulls gegee id 2e helfde teen Grant Hattingh. Net daarna is daar hoogvat van Schalk Burger op Nyakane. Niks nie.
Myns insiens het Peyper die game geswaai met inkonsekwensie. Hy behoort gesite te word en dis nie eerste keer vanjaar dat hy onder loep kom nie. Die IRB se koppies raas om hierdie ou toe te laat om world cup toe te gaan. Absoluut pateties.
Maar, overgesetsynde, ons skrums het probleme, en ons probleme begin by die inslaan. Greyling het ‘n baie lang rug en Marcel.vd Merwe was drie keer gedruk dat hy vou deur die jong Kebble. Dit lyk of ons voorry ‘n gebuigde tuinvurk se tande vorm. Die Stormers se inslaan is baie meer effektief. Basically het hulle die game gewen met soliede verdediging en die melk van strafskoppe via die skrums. My gevoel was die Bulle se opdrafvoorry van Mellet en Nyakane het vroeer id seisoen beter gewerk en Dean Greyling as impakspeler asook Marcel.
Andersins lê die fout by ons voorrye wat:
nie sterk genoeg is nie;
Swak taktiek gebruik;
Nie effektief afgerig word nie
Skeidsregters wat nie regtig ‘n clue het nie.
Vir ons Bulle lê daar takties ook harde werk voor vir beide Pollard en Van Zyl. Pollard se lynskoppe is goed, maar sy besluitneming het hom drie keer erg id steek gelaat en al drie kere was ons in hul kwartgebied en het ons besit afgestaan. Van Zyl se uppies laat veel te wense oor, maar oor die algemeen het ons ook nie dit baie goed opgevolg nie. Ons kan heelwat beter doen hier.
Ons lynstane was baie baie goed en hier was ons die Stormers oor. Ook die druk by die afbreekpunte het baie beter geword maar ons ondersteunende spel vir baldraers kan nog verbeter.
So twee moeilike weg games in twee weke agter die rug.”
Dean is a scrum penalty magnet like Bismarck is for foul play
Unfortunately the Bulls have contracted him till 2017
Dean’s very busy in the loose, he had the most turnovers in last years CC
It doesn’t help if he costs you 9 points
The Bulls should rethread him to hooker, like John Smit
Then you have all his benefits without the penalties
This past weekend I have reached the end of my tether as far as Dean Greyling and Deon Stegmann are concerned!
I bet though that Deon Stegmann will once again be selected as a starter and rest assured Dean Greyling will be in the match-day 23… giving his share of scrum penalties away.
It pisses me off that we see week after week how these 2 drag the rest of the team down and concede points and more points.
The Bulls did not play badly on the weekend, it was a hard-fought battle against the Stormers, and Bulls defences held well, lineouts the aspect where the Bulls reigned supreme… but scrum penalties keep milking points against the Bulls!
Lappies Labuschagne did very well when he replaced Deon Stegmann and plays very well towards the ball, so he would be my choice openside flank for the Bulls going forward.
As starting props, I suppose one would have to go with Morné Mellett at loosehead prop and Trevor Nyakane at tighthead, with Marcel van der Merwe as back-up tighthead prop… but hell one is then left with the freegin choice of only having the option to pick Dean Greyling as back-up loosehead… so till the Bulls have more fit props (Werner Kruger- tighthead) one cannot really shift Trevor Nyakane back to starting loosehead, with Mellett on the bech as backup loosehead.
The Lions scrum will test every aspect of the Bulls scrum!!
What irks me is that we will probably see Burger Odendaal fall out of the match-day 23, in stead of getting JJ Engelbrecht to move down to the bench or fall out and putting Jan Serfontein next to Burger Odendaal.
> Bulls scrum coach Wessel Roux has done a lot of work in the past few years, taking the Bulls away from their mantle as the most penalised scrum in the competition to one that has performed admirably this season
By giving away SEVEN scrum penalties?
Wessel Roux is kak, plain and simple
If he can’t train them to stay up, then at least tell the coach not to pick them
But nooo, Dean runs out with the no 1 on his back each week
grootblousmile wrote:
Dom Frans will stick with his useless favorites
Dean, JJ and we haven’t even started to talk about the utterly kak Callie
Why did the Bulls contract him?
grootblousmile wrote:
I don’t have a problem with Stegmann’s penalty, most fetchers give a away a penalty or two, even Ritchie does
Steggies makes his share of tackles too
2 @ Bullscot:
Balanced view??
Seeing it only from a Bulls perspective a balanced view… eish!!
Groom can touch the ball all he wants, if he has not picked the ball up, even with hands on the ball, then you cannot advance… in which case it is offside… like Deon Stegmann was indeed! That penalty was fair and reasonable.
The penalties against Dean Greyling in the 1st half was also fair and reasonable. Where on the field those penalties were conceded is even more telling… in easy penalty scoring positions.
To refer to a hand full of things where Peyper (and yes he is also not my favourite referee) blew to the Stormers advantage, is a very one-sided look at things. If you’re a Stormer you could similarly go hunt and look and point out a hand full of things where the Bulls could have been pinged.
Fact is, Dean Greyling is a penalty machine… and has been game upon game, season upon season… under all referees!
Same with Deon Stegmann… I think his time has come and gone!
The Lions loosies have been on fire in 2015 and Jaco Kriel, Warwick Tecklenburg and Warren Whiteley are going to give the Bulls a very hard time at the breakdowns and ground ball situations.
The Lions scrums are also way better than that of the Bulls… and to me THAT is a massive worry for this Saturday!
Rather than apportion blame elsewhere, the Bulls should rather “Slaan hand aan eie boesem” and fix their own shortcomings… of which suspect selection policies / favouritism, bad scrumming and scrumming technique are key!
Dean Greyling suffers under all referees… why… because HE is PRIMARILY at fault, not because the referees are all biased against him and the Bulls.
Unless you saw the game, with your own eyes, to rely on someone else’s interpretation and his supposedly balanced views just does not wash.
grootblousmile wrote:
And Tecklenburg wasn’t good enough for Frans and the Bulls, although he was already better than anything we had at the time
9 @ Victoriabok:
I would not say Tecklenburg was already better at the time he left the Bulls… but he certainly has developed well at the Lions!!
grootblousmile wrote:
He was one of the best loosies in the CC team,
I guess he wasn’t big enough?
We had another flanker, Okkie Kruger, who also played very well
I think he stopped playing, I know he was studying to be a Doctor
11 @ Victoriabok:
Eish, Bulls het baie loosies verloor…
CJ, Jean Cook, daai Griekwas opensider – watsynaampie nou weer (hoekom lui Burger Schoeman die klokkie by my), Tecklenburg… om maar net ‘n paar te noem!!
@ grootblousmile:
Dis nie Burger Schoeman nie, ek onthou die Bulle het hom vir Griekwas geleen en toe het hulle hom gehou
8 @ grootblousmile:
If you go through what is written in detail you will see what I mean by balanced view by the poster, sure it is about the Bulls BUT the person doesn’t try and be Jannie jammergat and suggest none of the penalties were fair – “Hoewel die penalties teen.Dean geregverdig kan word het Jaco oaar growwe foute gemaak met die fluitjie”
but rather points out regarding the Greyling penalties that there was 1 that went against Greyling so by default am assuming that the poster had no problems with any of the others.
That post also goes on to highlight various perceived problems with our play, and for one tried to provide an explanation of what looks wrong from watching it – eg. “Maar, overgesetsynde, ons skrums het probleme, en ons probleme begin by die inslaan.”,
“Andersins lê die fout by ons voorrye wat:
nie sterk genoeg is nie;
Swak taktiek gebruik;
Nie effektief afgerig word nie
Skeidsregters wat nie regtig ‘n clue het nie.”
“Vir ons Bulle lê daar takties ook harde werk voor vir beide Pollard en Van Zyl.” – etc
That’s why to me it seemed and still seems a reasonably objective balanced view of the game from one of our supporters.
grootblousmile wrote:
Most of the time it isn’t possible to see the games GBS so does that mean it is a waste of time to listen to them on the radio, or follow it here online or read about it after here, elsewhere on the web, newspapers?
“The Lions loosies have been on fire in 2015 and Jaco Kriel, Warwick Tecklenburg and Warren Whiteley are going to give the Bulls a very hard time at the breakdowns and ground ball situations.
The Lions scrums are also way better than that of the Bulls… and to me THAT is a massive worry for this Saturday!”
As I won’t be able to watch it how will I ever really know how the Lions loose forwards and their scrum performs against us on Saturday.
Frans’ Dream team?
15. Visser
14. Ndugane
13. JJ
12. Janneman
11. ?
10. JLP
9. Piet
8. Spies
7. Jonno Ross (C)
6. Stegmann
5. Victor
4. ?
3. Werner Kruger
2. Callie
1. Dean
grootblousmile wrote:
Koch has been getting rave reviews from many quarters but has also given away a lot of penalties, have not seen him being criticized much for this. Is this because he has not given away as many points with them in that he has conceded more of his penalties outside the red zone, ie. is Koch a clever prop?
Surely if giving away penalties by one player is a concern then it is also a concern for another player. One thing I always try to remember is that although it is the big hairy blokes who wrestle each other in the front row they also have 5 others in the scrum, so while a strong prop is good and can make life difficult for one who is not as strong the whole scrum is a unit and the role of the locks in particular can also be decisive. There was a highlights clip some seasons ago of the Springboks playing and I don’t know why I picked it up but I noticed in two scrums that the Boks were dominant the scrum wheeled in different directions, one they got a good right shoulder and the other it went the other way, Juan Smith was one of the flankers and he took up position on different sides of the scrum for those two scrums – the one thing that was the same was that the scrum went forward whichever side he was on. That to me confirmed even more the value of having strong scrummagers, not only in the front row or in the locks but also in the loose forwards.
12 @ grootblousmile:
13 @ Victoriabok:
Is Marnus Schoeman the name of the flanker you guys are looking for, I didn’t realize that he is at the Pumas now.
18 @ Bullscot:
Ah yes, Marnus Schoeman…. busy loosie… I like his way of playing!
As much as Dean deserves some blame, I lay the blame squarely on Wessel Roux, all our props regularly are getting humiliated, Morne Mellet has been pathetic this season.
17 @ Bullscot:
Koch gives away quite a few penalties, but imo it comes from inexperience, and he will only improve under Proudfoot, the Bulls props meanwhile will never improve, I still believe that Dean could have been a great player under that kind of mentorship.
that is if Wessel Roux is still the Bulls scrum coach… fuckit do we have a scrum coach or does Werner Kruger and Matfield take the lead?
@ Bullscot:
There is no way that one can get a “balanced view” of the Bulls on their website, the same way you won’t find a balanced view of the Aharks on SharksWorld and the Stormers on whatever fan site they have.
According to what I saw on the Bulls site the best team lost and it was because Peyper hates the Bulls….yet the week before when they beat the Sharks in Durban with Peyper also blowing, he was ok
grootblousmile wrote:
Very fair and good post….respect
Bullscot wrote:
Marnus, yes that’s him
Frans never liked him, he’s probably not 2m tall and doesn’t have DD cups like Spies?
23 @ nortie:
One MUST be able to see the shortcomings in your own side.
I have often said, “A good side wins, despite the ref”… and I stand by that.
Sure, the refs make mistakes… we all see and acknowledge that (well most of us).
I’m sure you see some shortcomings in the Stormers too.
The thing is, I think we need to expose the blatancy of certain shortcomings and clear favouritism, as that needs to hit home… somehow.
I just cannot ignore the same old, same old SHIT from the same players, whether it is Dean Greyling, Deon Stegmann, Louis Schreuder, Nic Groom, Frans Steyn, Bissie or Jannie du Plessis… or whomever. It needs to be nailed to the mast!
PS! The PUB is open, the beers are getting warm, the shots are standing all lined up!!
25 @ grootblousmile:
Agree, all teams have shortcomings, some actually work to find ways to eradicate it.
It wasn’t long ago when the Stormer’s forwards were referred to as powder puff, they sorted that out.
Now we need to sort our back line out.
The Canes have this year found the balance between a solid forward pack and a potent back line, whereas in the past the just had the backs.
I don’t believe for one moment that any SA side is even close to capable of winning the SR, whoever ends 3rd on the log, or tops the conference, will have 1, or maybe 2 extra games.
Maybe win the quarter and get klapped in the semi
nortie wrote:
Bulls lost because Dean couldn’t keep the scrum up
Also because Pollard (still a youngster) got impatient and kicked twice instead of keeping possession and getting the points with a penalties
The blame for the loss is only Ludeke’s for playing Dean when he doesn’t need to
He said in an interview a couple of years ago when asked why he kept playing Dean when he’s so scrum penalty prone, that Dean is busy in the loose and he had taken on the enforcer role after Bakkies left
The Bulls had Flip to do that on Saturday, and we have Lappies so Dean is not needed anymore
@ Victoriabok:
Yes Vic, you may say those things here….if you say it you-know-where Skippie and co will take you out 😆
Hulle like niks van Nitronic nie, hy is te “negatief”
nortie wrote:
Comment jy ook daar?
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