Cape Town – It has been a tough old season for Jake White on and off the field, but after much introspection, the Bulls director of rugby has a plan going forward: Stick to your guns.
It must have been particularly galling for the former Springbok coach to see his virtual full-strength URC side go down 41-33 to Western Province in a Currie Cup game at Loftus Versfeld last weekend, which was the Bulls’ ninth loss in 11 matches across all competitions.
But since then, he’s had lots of time to reflect in Belfast ahead of Saturday night’s clash against Ulster (9.35pm SA time kick-off), and White won’t be tinkering with his team much more.
He was able to include Bok backs Kurt-Lee Arendse and Canan Moodie on Friday, and is returning to the selection approach that worked so well last season that they made the URC final.
“I am fully aware that if I had kept the same group of players together and played them week-in and week-out, that might have been a way in which I could have turned a couple of things around. But I’m not convinced,” the Bulls boss said from Northern Ireland on Friday.
“What I need to get out of this is to keep this group of players together for a while now. The fact that they haven’t gelled is also to do with the fact that I have swapped combinations, I’ve swapped teams…
“Out of my 50-man squad, when I’ve got the 23 that play every week – as you saw last year, when we played Wednesday-Saturday, Wednesday-Saturday – we ended up playing our best rugby at the end of the competition, even though we trained a little and played a lot together.
“But I wasn’t convinced that flogging the same horse was going to get us the same results. Now, in hindsight, people would say ‘Why didn’t you keep the main guys?’, and I suppose it’s easier said than done
“I just want to see whether, if we keep this group together as a cohesive unit in the next couple of weeks, we can turn the results around. We are not where we want to be.
“I was listening to an interview with (Leinster senior coach) Stuart Lancaster, and he started coaching in Ireland in 2016, and this group of players – Garry Ringrose and Hugo Keenan – were 20 or 21 years old. They are now 28, 29 years old, and it puts things in perspective.
“That (Leinster) group has been through URC finals, European Cup finals, and that’s why you grow as a group.
“I thought that by swapping players around and trying different combinations – and resting certain guys – we would get the same return, but we haven’t.”
White, though, is not giving up hope of still reaching the URC play-offs this season.
The Bulls are in sixth position on the log with 43 points, and if they lose at Kingspan Stadium, they are likely to be passed by the Sharks (41), whose Springbok-laden outfit should have the beating of the Scarlets in Wales tomorrow (7pm SA time).
Then it will come down to the last two league games, against Zebre on April 15, at Ellis Park and Leinster a week later at Loftus, to see whether they can reach the quarter-finals.
“I’ve been reflecting myself, chatting to some people, listening to some podcasts on coaching philosophies in different sports… I’ve been doing this job for a long time, and this is one of those seasons where you have more questions than answers,” White said.
“There is no magic potion, no magic wand. You’ve got to just keep going, and eventually that cycle turns.
“It’s gonna happen – we’ve just got to keep believing: that’s the most important thing. We still have our destiny in our own hands. The Springboks lost the opening game of the World Cup and won it, and Spain in the football World Cup.
“The reality is that all you’ve got to do is to get into the play-offs – then it’s a three-game competition again. And we proved that last year by beating the side that was unbeaten.
“No one’s won anything. It doesn’t matter whether we’ve lost twice to Team A and Team B. When we get to the play-offs, it doesn’t matter what happened in the last fixture.
“I am fully aware of the fact that we need changes… we need to find different combinations. Sometimes as a coach you make certain decisions, and you learn from that.
“You expect players to learn and grow, and it’s the same for coaches. I’ve made some calls and sometimes they didn’t work, but it’s not over.
“Those calls could come back in the last three weeks of the competition and work in our favour, because we are fresher and got certain other things right – we didn’t play as much, or we’ve rotated our squad.
“But only the end of the comp will tell me that, and that’s one of the things we have to try to do: Get to the end, and then do a proper review of what we think we could have changed or kept in the same position.”
Teams For Belfast
Ulster: 15 Mike Lowry 14 Rob Baloucoune 13 James Hume 12 Stewart Moore 11 Jacob Stockdale 10 Billy Burns 9 Nathan Doak 8 Duane Vermeulen (captain) 7 Nick Timoney 6 David McCann 5 Sam Carter 4 Kieran Treadwell 3 Jeff Toomaga-Allen 2 Tom Stewart 1 Andrew Warwick.
Bench: 16 John Andrew 17 Eric O’Sullivan 18 Gareth Milasinovich 19 Alan O’Connor 20 Harry Sheridan 21 Marcus Rea 22 John Cooney 23 Jude Postlethwaite.
Bulls: 15 Kurt-Lee Arendse 14 Canan Moodie 13 Cornal Hendricks 12 Harold Vorster 11 David Kriel 10 Chris Smith 9 Zak Burger 8 Elrigh Louw 7 Cyle Brink 6 Marco van Staden 5 Ruan Nortjé (captain) 4 Ruan Vermaak 3 Mornay Smith 2 Johan Grobbelaar 1 Gerhard Steenekamp.
Bench: 16 Bismarck du Plessis 17 Simphiwe Matanzima 18 Francois Klopper 19 Janko Swanepoel 20 WJ Steenkamp 21 Embrose Papier 22 Morné Steyn 23 Stedman Gans.
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