The Vodacom Bulls’ disappointing attempt to break their title duck in the Vodacom URC elicited some rightful criticism but the sober light of dawn analysis should point to the reality - going to Dublin was always likely to be a bridge too far for Johan Ackermann’s team.
Yes, they fluffed their lines quite spectacularly. It was almost like the Bulls had spent the week reading the pundits who had highlighted what they should do - and then resolved to do the exact opposite. Not that Leinster’s own good play should be ignored, but after an early good defensive set, there was a breakaway try against the run of play for the hosts, and then it became a re-run of last year’s final where they played under a different coach.
It was universally agreed that with Leinster renowned for their fast starts, the Bulls’ chances would hinge on them hanging in early, just like the DHL Stormers somehow managed to do in the first quarter of their URC semifinal in the period when Leinster were doing all the attacking and had all the ball.
If that was the aim, the Bulls shot themselves in the foot with their discipline. Canan Moodie’s tap-down yellow card was costly. So was Willie le Roux’s later in the half. To my mind the Bulls may also have made a mistake, and it was written beforehand, by leaving some of their best forwards on the bench.
A MISTAKE NOT TO START WITH WILCO AND COBUS
Given Leinster’s reputation for a fast start, Wilco Louw and Cobus Wiese, both of them in the Springbok squad named by Rassie Erasmus later in the weekend, should have been there from the start to exert their physical influence on the game. Francois Klopper didn’t do badly at tighthead and forced a scrum penalty, but with Louw there the Bulls’ edge in the scrums could have been more emphatic. And Wiese could have added more to the drive.
When you talk of setpieces, it was the lineouts that really let the Bulls down early doors. Plus their failure to replicate the suffocating, physical defensive game that saw the Stormers push Leinster all the way at the Aviva Stadium two weeks earlier. Maybe the Bulls should also have made the two-week break between the semi and the final count for them by staying in the northern hemisphere after their win in the semifinal in Edinburgh. Helping the visitors in a cross-hemisphere final be more competitive was surely what the two-week break was introduced to achieve. The Bulls should have used it.
STORMERS' LOSS IN CARDIFF SET END RESULT IN STONE
But despite all that, it is hard to escape the feeling that the URC outcome was written in stone from the moment the Stormers, who’d done so much of the running in the competition in the regular season, lost to Cardiff in their final league fixture and thus lost out on a top two finish.
Had they finished in the top two, and they should really have finished top, they’d have hosted Leinster in their semifinal in Cape Town rather than having to travel. Given how close they came at the Aviva Stadium, they’d have had a good chance of winning, and thus securing a home final.
The benefits of playing a decider at home were writ large at Croke Park when in the second half the Bulls, in their attempts to fight back, came out on the wrong side of the 50/50 calls. They looked to many eyes like they had scored one try that was disallowed when they drove over, and then there was a later try that was chalked off when the TMO went all forensic and ruled a forward pass that was far from clear and obvious.
HOME ADVANTAGE IS GOLD IN A DECIDER
That’s the reality of rugby at this level. It is accepted that playing at home gives you an advantage for more than just the voluble support that drives teams on from the terraces, and Croke Park did look like a difficult place to visit. The Bulls were always the underdogs when they had to travel, and it should not be forgotten that they contested the final from a fourth-place finish.
In the end, the Bulls over-achieved, and while the margin of defeat may have been a surprise, the fact that they lost as the visiting team wasn’t. Of the South African teams, it was the Stormers who had the chance to host, and they blew it not just with their losses to Cardiff and the one at home to Connacht when they were wrought with understandable emotion following the untimely and unexpected sudden death of their popular and much-loved team manager, Chippie Solomon, but also the home game they lost to the Hollywoodbets Sharks.
SHARKS’ SEASON WAS LAMENTABLY POOR
The Sharks’ last game in the competition was so long ago, on 16 May, meaning five weeks ago, that their pitiful showing has almost been forgotten, but it should not be. While the Bulls are being slammed because they were the most recent team to play, they did well to get as far as they did given their poor start and seven successive early defeats.
In mid-season the Bulls were facing a crisis almost as deep as the Bulls’. Remember how the Bulls went cap in hand to SA Rugby to beg for help in the form of the Bok assistant coaches? That seems so long ago now. The Sharks were in the same position back then, but unlike the Bulls, they did not get out of their crisis and two good wins in the last two matches against England players with young newcomers starring provided only a partial salve to the gaping wounds in Durban.
The Sharks are going to have to be a lot better next year, but they are losing as many players as they appear to be gaining, and even the young talent doesn’t seem completely fixed to the club, with Luan Giliomee and others set to continue their careers elsewhere next year. Thomas du Toit is a good buy, but he comes into a position that wasn’t an obvious problem in the first place - apart from the presence of veteran Bok World Cup winner Vincent Koch, Hanro Jacobs is underrated.
It will be a testing season for coach JP Pietersen too. The wins over the Stormers boosted his credentials and the Sharks bosses rushed to have him installed as permanent coach, but was it premature? What followed those Stormers wins left questions unanswered.
LIONS MADE BIGGEST GAINS
The Fidelity SecureDrive Lions ended their campaign in disappointing fashion with a big quarterfinal defeat to Leinster, who by the end of the season must have been sick of seeing South African teams, even though it was only the Stormers that really challenged them in the knock-outs. But what they did before that was huge, and at least they were in the quarterfinal, which, lest it be forgotten, they contested without key players like Morne van den Bergh and Ruan Venter, who were injured, plus of course the loss of their star tighthead to suspension.
The Lions are on the rise and they’ve also managed to change the trend of losing their star players to rivals, with there being plenty of young talented players coming through the Lions system to suggest there are better days ahead.
Which you might well say about the South African challenge generally. The Stormers will be bolstered during the off-season by the arrival of star players like Louw, Siya Kolisi and Cheslin Kolbe, plus Argentine lock Tomas Lavanini, while Rassie Erasmus has now given the Stormers an extra Bok lock in the form of young Riley Norton, who is sure to be capped as a test player sometime in the coming international season.
The Sharks can’t be as bad again as they were this season, and the Bulls will be in their second season under Ackermann and hopefully get closer to settling on their true identity. Which says something about their potential if you consider they made the final this year.
Result of URC final at Croke Park in Dublin: Leinster 36 Vodacom Bulls 7