Bulls director of rugby Jake White cut a frustrated figure on Saturday despite seeing his side snatch a late victory over Leinster in the United Rugby Championship.
The Pretoria outfit maintained their title aspirations and inflicted the Irish province’s first defeat of the campaign, but it was an unconvincing display by the hosts.
They were facing a Leinster outfit that were without their Six Nations stars, even though world-class duo RG Snyman and Jordie Barrett added plenty of quality and experience to the visiting squad.
Taking on a team that were severely weakened, the Bulls appeared to be on course for a disappointing 20-18 defeat, but David Kriel’s last-minute penalty rescued them.
‘We will lose those games’
“I’m not going to condone red cards, yellow cards, stupidity… Because when we get to the knockout stages, we will lose those games,” White told reporters.
“We need to be more smart. We can’t be stupid and think that we are going to get to the back end of the competition and win it if we don’t make better decisions in those situations.
“It’s stupid things, stupid – unbelievably stupid. New Zealanders talk about game smartness, and I think that it is the bottom line.
“You’ve got to understand where you are on the field, what the score is, what your job is…
“That smartness is also something a player has to learn. You can’t coach him every single thing about his role.
“The maul try and the yellow card… There is a lot of effort in that. You know how tired you get when you have maul, scrum, maul, scrum.”
White praised his players’ spirit and resilience, but the former Springboks head coach admitted that the sheer number of mistakes could have cost them.
“I’m proud of the way they fought, and the bench came on and made an impact. But I’m also not sweeping anything under the table,” he said.
“And the reality is that it’s just because of our actions. Four times we’ve given penalties away for playing the nine – three of those were yellow cards.
“Today, we play the guy in the air: red card [for Sebastian de Klerk]. You take everything away from the effort the other guys put in to get back in the game.”
Incredible scrum
The Bulls were once again indebted to their fearsome scrum – arguably the best in the URC – as they earned the penalty from which Kriel kicked the hosts to a 21-20 triumph.
“Most teams might have thought, ‘that’s it, game gone’. Most teams would’ve accepted that Leinster would’ve finished the game off,” White added.
“And they didn’t. How much price can you put on a team that says: ‘Forget it, we are going to get a scrum penalty here’?
“And that is all I was asking. Just make sure that today we are desperate to get a result. I want to see for 80 minutes that you are desperate for a result. I don’t want to see anything else.
“We needed a scrum penalty in the last play of the game, and they needed to put the ball in and out, and kick the ball out.
“And after two resets, we managed to get the penalty on the third scrum.”
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Src: Planetrugby.com - https://www.planetrugby.com/news/jake-white-hits-out-at-unbelievably-stupid-bulls-players-despite-victory-over-leinster
