The Vodacom Bulls bowed out of the EPCR Challenge Cup on Saturday afternoon, going down 34-28 to Edinburgh in their quarterfinal in the Scottish capital.
But while the Bulls will be kicking themselves for a game they could have won, and a bit more accuracy in the second half probably would have given them the victory, they won’t be able to hide the fact that a nightmare first half cost them the game.
Bulls coach Jake White will probably point to the fightback as vindication for the strong bench he picked to be in the game at the end, but the advantage they surrendered in the first half made it an uphill battle that in the end was a bridge too far.
Because by no means is this Edinburgh side one of the top sides in the competition.
Comparing the effort to Leinster’s 52-0 demolition of Glasgow in the Investec Champions Cup not even 24 hours earlier will underline just how much of a gulf in class there currently is and just how poor those opening 40 minutes for the Bulls were.
FIGHTBACK
Their 21-10 second-half fightback was heartening, but it will also infuriate Bulls fans to the extent that if the Bulls were just a little better, or showed a little more fight in the first half, they probably could have won the contest.
Instead it was left to the bench to make the impact and in the end it fell short of a win as Edinburgh held on for dear life and managed to get the 50-50 calls their way to eke out the win.
It also means that the best South African participation in both European competitions will be down to those who are plying their trade for other teams, while the four South African franchises will sit back for two weeks and watch others play for the glittering prizes.
To be honest, South Africa’s campaign in this season’s EPCR and Champions Cup competitions has been embarrassing and some reflection at the end of the season will have to be done to see a better result in Europe.
It is hard to dismiss some of the complaints from up north if South African teams don’t put up a better performance.
SHELL-SHOCKED
And in the first half that was a very valid argument as the Bulls simply looked as if they were shell-shocked.
They looked not only out of their depth, but unwilling to fight for any sort of parity as Edinburgh did what they were expected to do - come out fighting.
It was a marked difference from a week earlier when the Bulls were fighting for every point in France and where they won a firm victory against the hostile home team and their hostile home crowd.
This time the Bulls were flat, tame and uninterested. They ceded any sort of first-half advantage to Edinburgh to such an extent that the home side could have scored more tries.
And with that in mind, the 24-7 halftime lead that Edinburgh had built up was almost flattering to the Bulls.
To be fair to the visitors, some of the refereeing from French referee Pierre Brousset was bizarre to say the least.
While South African teams struggle to get the rub of the green in Europe, Brousset helped Edinburgh’s scrum by not rewarding the Bulls' dominance until late in the game, and some of his interpretations will confuse many a rugby fan.
Unfortunately one of the rules in life is clear - there is purgatory, there is hell and then there are games controlled by French referees.
The Bulls simply needed to be better, but weren’t.
LINEOUTS A BIG FACTOR IN DEFEAT
If the Bulls had to analyse their own game they would have to admit that a game plan that is built on the strongest scrum in the URC, never got the reward they needed.
The more worrying part was the poor lineouts, that stunted almost every opportunity they got in the first 50 minutes and then again when they needed to chase the game hard at the end.
Those elementary errors were their downfall.
Coupled with that, the discipline was not good enough.
Jannes Kirsten was lucky not to see red twice for tackles that away from home seem to bring much more investigation than normal.
But his technique was poor and on both occasions he could easily have been dispatched for them.
Zak Burger’s yellow card was harsh, but 20 minutes with 14 men didn’t help the Bulls at all.
The campaign for the Bulls as a whole was underwhelming, disappointing and rested on a poor Champions Cup campaign where they could only win one game and where their form in the Challenge Cup never stood up to scrutiny.
As a whole the reflection is not only warranted but necessary as they now pin their hopes on the URC for the remainder of the season.
Still, the way they started you would have wondered if they had sampled too much of Edinburgh’s tourist attractions, rather than preparing for the game.
DEFENSIVE ERRORS
Defensive errors abounded - such as the open gap left on the dog-leg defence on the inside for James Lang to run through and score.
Magnus Bradbury - the man of the match - exploited a second gap with ease to add to Edinburgh’s total.
Only a broken-field break by Harold Vorster, picking up a loose ball and scything through a gap, allowed the Bulls to get onto the board when David Kriel took the pass and stretched his arm over to score.
Lang scored his second off a grubber that rebounded off Wilco Louw and back into his arms.
A lucky try, but one that went with the momentum of the game.
At 21-7 Ross Thompson stepped up to make it three more at the break and leave the Bulls seriously needing to climb a mountain to get back into the match.
They did, but not before they conceded another try as Kirsten got his yellow from the kickoff for a dangerous tackle that could have been more, and Grant Gilchrist was over a few phases later as the Bulls backpedalled.
BENCH MADE A MASSIVE DIFFERENCE
The bench came on and the class improvement showed, but the Bulls still were struggling.
They got the breakthrough they needed when Ross McCann committed a professional foul to stop a rampant driving maul, earning him a yellow card and the Bulls a penalty try.
Cameron Hanekom forced his way over in the 49th minute to give the Bulls hope and then David Kriel made it a close game by going over for his second four minutes before the end.
In between the Bulls had chances, but poor lineouts, handling errors and their own demons stopped them short.
It was left to an ironic end as Pierre Schoeman, a product of Affies and the Bulls, won the crucial turnover penalty as the Bulls attacked at the end to put his former team out of the competition.
But in reality the Bulls' first half killed their chances and they never recovered enough to win.
SCORERS
EDINBURGH - tries: James Lang (2), Magnus Bradbury, Grant Gilchrist. Conversions: Ross Thompson (4). Penalties: Thompson (2).
VODACOM BULLS - tries: David Kriel (2), Penalty try, Cameron Hanekom. Conversions: Keagan Johannes, Johan Goosen (2).
