Lappies Labuschagne

Pierre Spies

Regular Vodacom Bulls captain Pierre Spies is back at the helm and at No 8 for the Vodacom Bulls team to face the Blues in Auckland on Friday.

Spies played as a replacement in the team’s last Vodacom Super Rugby clash, against the Emirates Lions at Loftus Versfeld, and will replace Arno Botha at the back of the scrum. Botha will move to the side of the scrum, with Jacques du Plessis moving to the bench.

In the only change in the backline, Rudy Paige comes back at scrumhalf in place of injured Piet van Zyl.

There are 4 changes on the bench. Dean Greyling comes in for Morné Mellett and a fit-again Werner Kruger will replace Andrew Beerwinkel. It will be Kruger’s 1st appearance since the opening Round of the tournament when he injured his ankle against the DHL Stormers in February. Amongst the backs, Jacques-Louis Potgieter is fit again following a hamstring strain and replaces Tian Schoeman and Travis Ismaiel comes in for Jurgen Visser.

Vodacom Bulls coach Frans Ludeke expressed his satisfaction with the players available and the team selected for the opening tour match. “At this stage of the competition you need to be playing your best rugby and have great momentum. We are pretty close to that and we cannot afford to slip up if we want to stay in the play-off race. That said, we are playing a very dangerous team so will have to execute very well.”

Spies also warns of the dangers the Blues bring to the match. “They have strike runners and counter-attacking players all over the team and we will have to make sure we control possession and territory if we want to start the tour on a winning note. We have won here before though, so everyone is keen to keep on the winning track.”

Vodacom Bulls: 15 Jesse Kriel, 14 Francois Hougaard, 13 JJ Engelbrecht, 12 Jan Serfontein, 11 Bjorn Basson, 10 Handré Pollard, 9 Rudy Paige, 8 Pierre Spies (Captain), 7 Arno Botha, 6 Lappies Labuschagne, 5 Victor Matfield, 4 Flip van de Merwe, 3 Marcel van der Merwe, 2 Adriaan Strauss, 1 Trevor Nyakane
Replacements: 16 Callie Visagie, 17 Dean Greyling, 18 Werner Kruger, 19 Jacques du Plessis, 20 Deon Stegmann, 21 Burger Odendaal, 22 Jacques-Louis Potgieter, 23 Travis Ismaiel

Date: Friday 15 May
Venue: Eden Park, Auckland
Kick-Off: 09:35 SA Time (19:35 NZ Time, 07:35 GMT)
Referee: Mike Fraser
Assistant Referees: Nick Briant, Aki Aso
TMO: Glenn Newman

Frans Ludeke

Bulls relish pressure-cooker situation:

Bulls coach Frans Ludeke would be excused for having sleepless nights in the build-up to his side’s Australasian tour, as they will be looking for a minimum of 3 victories to remain in the Super Rugby title race.

Speaking on their departure on Monday, Ludeke said that the pressurised nature of the tour would bring out the best in his charges.

“I think the team reacts well to pressure,” the coach said.

“We would like to be there at the end, which makes it a crucial tour for us,” he added.

“We need to pick up a few results there, but it has always been like that and the process would get you there.”

The Bulls will face a struggling Blues side in their opening encounter at Eden Park on Friday and will be looking for a 3rd consecutive victory over the Auckland side in as many years.

The Bulls only managed 1 victory on tour in 2013, incidentally against the Blues in their 1st match of their overseas leg of that year, while the 3-time Super Rugby champions claimed a comprehensive 38 / 22 win in Pretoria in 2014.

“A lot of things have changed for both sides since then, but we got that monkey off our back and it is about how we won on that day,” Ludeke said.

“We were really accurate. Our set-pieces, our defence was 1st-class and they came with everything that day, but we held our ground.”

With only 2 Super Rugby victories for the Blues this season, it is tempting to predict that the Bulls would be guaranteed a bonus-point victory to kick-off the tour, but Ludeke was dismissive of such optimism.

“Obviously the 1st 1 is the big 1. We would like to start well and we are playing against a side that if you give them ideal possession, they are a handful,” he said.

“We take it game by game and we respect them too much to say that we target this game.

“They are our next step on our Super Rugby journey and we are on tour playing the Blues at home, with a huge history behind them.”

The Bulls’ touring record is nothing to boast about, with the Pretoria side winning only 1 of their last 8 matches in Australasia.

Asked about the prospects on the rest of the tour that include matches against the Chiefs and Brumbies before ending against a resurgent Melbourne Rebels outfit, Ludeke asked to have that question posed at a later stage.

He went on to say that playing away from home would allow his charges to form a tighter bond, which he felt was advantageous heading into the business end of the season and aid in his team’s quest to improve every week, provided they keep producing the results.

Ludeke said the team had a more settled look to it compared to last year’s tour, considering that only 12 players experienced their 1st tour with the Bulls.

(rugby365)

Pierre Spies

Francois Hougaard

No contract renewal for Pierre Spies or Francois Hougaard yet:

Reports indicate that the Bulls haven’t even made an offer to Pierre Spies to return to play Super Rugby next season, and while the Bulls continue to profess that negotiations are ongoing, is it strange that they haven’t even commenced negotiations with an offer of some sorts to their captain.

The norm in negotiations by unions is to try and sign up their players under contract within a year of the contract expiring, thereby staving off the competition from rival unions for the player’s signature, but in Spies’ case this hasn’t been done at all.

It is a strange way of handling things, especially considering Spies has spent his entire career at the Bulls and is their captain.

Normally if a player hasn’t received an offer from his union 5 months before the end of his contract, it is a firm indication that the union doesn’t need his services any longer.

But the Bulls deny this, and say they are continually negotiating with Spies.

Spies confirmed that he had not finalised anything with the Bulls and still has no home for Super Rugby next season, but said he would probably have more clarity when he returned from the tour in a month’s time.

The Bulls rubbished reports a few weeks ago that there was to be another “mass exodus” of players, this time to Japan, and said that the players in question – of which Spies was one – would be returning for Super Rugby.

Spies currently has an offer on the table from Japan and 2 from clubs in France, but is likely to prefer the Japanese option as it would allow him to play Super Rugby next season as well.

While it may well be that he is waiting to see if he is in the Springbok mix when the national contracts are handed out, it is still strange that the Bulls have not even discussed figures with Spies.

Bulls High Performance manager Xander Janse van Rensburg said in response that they are in constant contact with Spies and his agent.

“We are in constant discussions about Pierre’s future with his agent,” Van Rensburg said, “But there are a number of factors that play a role with his situation and that is why it is sensitive at the moment.”

Meanwhile, Bok Francois Hougaard is in a similar situation and still hasn’t been contracted by the union from 2016 onwards.

While Hougaard has an offer on the table from a Japanese club, he has also been courted by Exeter Chiefs and Leceister Tigers, and is considering offers from both.

(SuperSport)