It was rather a surprise when, shortly after the Vodacom Bulls were mauled by Irish side Ulster on Saturday night, the Bulls president Willem Strauss echoed many supporters' sentiments by referring to the loss as the “arguably the worst performance since entering” the Vodacom United Rugby Championship.
Strauss may not be far off the mark as the introduction of a host of Springboks backfired on Johan Ackermann’s side as they slumped to a 28-7 loss in Belfast on Saturday night. Three tries while Jeandre Rudolph was off the field were extremely costly in an arm-wrestle and forced the Bulls to chase the game.
Ackermann wasn’t taking the bait, though, when the Bulls addressed the game on Sunday afternoon, taking note of the disappointment but rather focusing on the trip to Galway to face Connacht, which will be another tough outing for his side on tour.
Strauss’ message read: “Arguably our worst performance since joining the URC. Terrible effort. Not interested and disconnected. We've now conceded 14 tries in just 3 games. We need urgency and intensity asap.”
LEAKY DEFENCE AND HOST OF ERRORS
Anyone watching the game would find it hard to disagree, especially about a leaky defence and the amount of errors that were committed in a performance the Bulls would rather forget.
Ackermann’s short reign will come with some setbacks, and he has hardly had time to implement his game plan - at times the Bulls looked as if they were caught between game plans on Saturday night - but the tough first game on the road would always be difficult for the side.
It wasn’t helped by inconsistent refereeing and a TMO that was asleep at the wheel. Three of the tries on the night - including the Bulls only try - were questionable but given the green light by the TMO who could see no wrong despite replays that clearly showed something different.
Ackermann knows those are the knocks that you get playing away from home in front of a partisan crowd, with 50-50 calls going the way of the home side.
But it was hard to fathom how poorly the Boks integrated into the side and the lack of game management that came with it.
CRITICISM WAS VALID
Ackermann said the criticism was valid and would be handled as such.
“Obviously, I'm not going to comment on any messages,” he said when asked about Strauss’s WhatsApp group message.
“There are a lot of people who probably have got comments to make. As long as everybody's doing his job as good as he can. Ultimately, I said to the players the reality is families go through tough times.
“You can show me one family that's perfect, one family that doesn't fight, one family that doesn't go through tough times, or one marriage or one relationship that is perfect? We're in a relationship between players, staff, etc. We're in this together. There's no hiding.
“There's no easy way out. Do we like to lose? No. Do we go out to lose? No.
“Ultimately, all we can do is look at ourselves and make sure that we fix the things we need to fix and stand up and be accountable. You can't run away from trouble. Show me one thing in life you can run away from.
“You have to face life head on and that's what we're going to do. I said to them we can sitand sulk or we can do something. I'm sure as South Africans, we have shown them more than once that we can stand up and hopefully we can do that this week.”
INTEGRATION OF BOKS ALWAYS DIFFICULT
Ackermann said the integration of the Boks was always going to be difficult, and they had kept the game plan simple. But the Bulls finishing was poor, and it was costly on a night when things didn’t go their way.
“Obviously we kept it quite simple. We closed the playbook a little bit more to make it a bit easier. You're not going to have ten different plays and try to do every playbook move in the first week when you've got seven changes.
“So the plays were there and if we look at the opportunities we had, it was just, we didn't finish. There were opportunities, and then it's just our individual errors that cost us. We lost ball, I think we lost the ball four times in the carries.
“So it wasn't so much just the players who came in and it wasn't just so much the fact that they didn't know how to play. It was more skill and errors and that's always going to be a challenge. That's the challenge when you're successful.
“The Bulls were successful in the sense that they played in four finals. When a team plays it against you, they don't lack what's the word? Motivation. Because they're going to, they want to measure them against the best.
“If I scrum against Wilco (Louw) or I play against Handre (Pollard) and I am 21 or 24, I want to play against a world champion, I want to measure myself. That's the reality. So we're not going to get a side that makes it easier.
CHALLENGE FOR PLAYERS
“They see the Bulls as one of the top teams in the competition and that's the challenge for the players. There's no off weekend. So unfortunately even for the Springboks, if you come to the Bulls after you've just won a rugby championship, there's no easy game.”
Ackermann pointed to the fact the Bulls had only one successful conversion of 11 entries into the 22 metre area. That stat alone is not good enough and will be a big focus for the side this week.
“We didn't convert our 22-metre entries. We had 11, and we only converted one, so that's 1 out of 11. And then, obviously, we made a lot of turnovers, you know, handling errors. They scored four tries. One was a kick through, one was a pick-and-go, and one was a cross kick that they gathered and played well. So they actually worked for one.
“The others were just too soft. So defensively, we need to tighten up and look after the ball if we want to get results.”
Ackermann added that he didn’t regret including all the Springboks, none of whom had good games on the night.
STORMERS PLAYERS INTEGRATED WELL
“It's difficult to say what the result would have been if we stick to the, maybe to the team that played in the first two rounds. The Stormers players, they integrated and they played well. So there's always the flip of the coin. But the reality is we just didn't play well enough on the night.
“In those first 10 minutes, actually the first half, we had a lot of opportunities. We were over the line, but then there was a little knock before we scored. We had a lot of opportunities to score points that we didn't convert.
“We'll have to look at ourselves as coaches, to make sure that we've got the structure to score tries and the plan to score tries, before we start looking at the players. Then obviously the players can take that responsibility as well.
“But collectively, I think on the night there were good things, but there were just too many little errors that crept in from all over from the whole team.”
Ackermann is set to name the side to face Connacht on Friday.
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