Bulls director of rugby Jake White has revealed how his team’s “fight and resilience” helped them to clinch a 42-33 triumph over Edinburgh in their United Rugby Championship (URC) quarter-final on Saturday.
The home side had to dig deep to get the better of their opponents as they made a slow start and were made to come back from a 21-8 deficit to beat the Scottish capital outfit in an entertaining clash at Loftus Versfeld.
The Bulls will now host South African rivals the Sharks in an eagerly anticipated semi-final next weekend.
Deja vu for the Bulls
Saturday’s clash with Edinburgh was a case of deja vu for White and his troops as they were in a similar situation against the same opposition in a Challenge Cup quarter-final at Hive Stadium in April.
“We were 24-7 down the last time we played Edinburgh,” White said after the game in Pretoria which saw them outscore Sean Everitt’s charges by six tries to five.
“This time, 21-8 down – and not many teams come back like that in a quarter-final. But we learned, and that’s the key.”
The 2022 and 2024 URC runners-up deserve plenty of credit as they did not panic after Edinburgh’s fast start and despite trailing by that 13-point margin by the half-hour mark, they narrowed the gap to three points at half-time before taking control of proceedings in the second half.
The Bulls lost Sebastian de Klerk to a yellow card as early as the third minute and White feels that was a contributing factor to their poor start to the encounter.
“One lesson we can’t ignore is that we can’t play with 14 men and expect to keep winning,” he said.
“We gave them two tries while a man down. That’s not sustainable.”
Despite that, the former Springboks boss was full of praise for his players’ fighting spirit.
Hailed the ‘fight and resilience and learning’
“I’m just very happy that there was the fight and resilience and learning,” he added. “I always talk about being in this competition and learning from what happened previously.
“We were down but got a [winning] result. Whereas the last time we played them, we didn’t.”
The 61-year-old admitted that the mood was tense amongst the Bulls’ coaching staff after their slow start.
“A couple of choice words were said — not for TV,” he said jokingly.
“But what are you going to do? You can’t shout and scream and behave like a lunatic up there.
“I just had confidence that it was an 80-minute game and although they had a fast start, going from 21-8 to 21-18 in that space must’ve given the guys belief that we learned from last time.”
Src: Planetrugby.com - https://www.planetrugby.com/news/jake-white-on-how-choice-words-did-the-trick-for-bulls-against-edinburgh
