Bulls director of rugby Jake White has pitched a law tweak after contemplating his matchday 23 in the hours before the delayed URC clash with the Stormers.
The Juskei derby was delayed by over an hour on Saturday due to heavy rain and lightning, leaving the two sets of teams in the changing rooms waiting for officials to give the green light.
During the delay, White revealed that he mulled over his selections for the match and wondered if he had made a mistake in selecting the conventional 5-3 bench split instead of backing a more forward-heavy approach which the Stormers backed.
Bulls bench set-up
Unlike many other sports, rugby coaches are required to name their teams at least 24 hours before a fixture, sometimes even further in advance and are only permitted to make changes in the event of injuries or failed fitness tests.
The Bulls would ultimately fall to a 16-19 defeat to the Stormers courtesy of a Wandisle Simelane try – one of just two five-pointers in the clash played in torrid conditions.
Speaking after the match, White felt that the Stormers’ bench played a big role in the outcome of the match, particularly because the Bulls suffered three injuries in the opening 50 minutes, limiting his options in the latter stages, while John Dobson was able to unload his bench in the last 30 minutes.
“To be fair, they could hold back, hold back and hold back because we couldn’t really hold back on our replacements because, by 40-odd minutes, basically 2 forwards were gone,” White told reporters.
“I sort of sat today thinking maybe we should have gone with a 6-2 bench from a tactical perspective while we were warming up and the game was delayed.
“I was thinking, should we try and change our team and say one of our backs has got injured in the warm-up? But the reality was as it so happened that Canan [Moodie] went off in 4 minutes, so we needed a 5-3 bench. And I’m up for one minute saying I was going to cheat, it was through my head, on the basis of if the 6-2 split that they had was better than a 5-3 in those conditions.”
“I’m always amazed that you can’t do that”
This led the former Springboks coach to question the reasoning why he is not permitted to make late changes to his team, which is a general practice in many sports. In fact, football managers only name their lineups a few hours before kick-off.
“I also thought about it today, I’m always amazed that you can’t do that in rugby,” he continued.
“In every other sport you can do that, why is it that when the game is delayed for an hour and a half and it’s pelting down with rain; why don’t we have a law that a coach can go ‘Things have changed so much, let’s go 6-2 or let’s start with another prop’?
“We have changed so many laws and made the game so much better, why are the lawmakers persisting with this? It was quite an interesting thing sitting in that changing room for an hour and a half thinking ‘Why don’t the lawmakers allow you to actually change your original team’.”
The Bulls boss did answer his own question, though, as he believes that the home team could have an unfair advantage over the visitors when it comes to making late changes to their team.
“I would think it’s unfair on the away team because the home team has their whole squad there,” he said.
“And the other team that’s flowing here has only got X amount of guys so one would think that’s probably why they don’t allow you to do it.”
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Stormers are a tough team to beat
The Bulls boss did not use the makeup of his bench as an excuse for the result, admitting that the 5-3 split worked out in his favour because of the injury to Moodie early on in the fixture.
He also praised the performance of the visitors who won the kicking battle to emerge victorious.
“I’ve said this many times, but they’re a tough team to beat,” White added.
“They’re very good at what they did tonight and they’re very good at doing that in games because that’s how they’ve probably beaten us a lot of times because of the return they’ve got from the way they have kicked.”
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Src: Planetrugby.com - https://www.planetrugby.com/news/jake-white-amazed-that-world-rugby-laws-deny-coaches-a-luxury-allowed-in-every-other-sport
