While a place in the final is always enough motivation for any team, the Vodacom Bulls have more than enough motivation if they are to get to the Vodacom United Rugby Championship final with a win over arch-rivals, the Hollywoodbets Sharks this Saturday at Loftus Versfeld.
While coach Jake White was irked by a website that called them “chokers” in a ridiculous analogy that stretched back to the start of Super Rugby, he knows he can’t argue about the nearly men tag in the URC that has followed them around after losing two finals in the competition’s three years.
The fourth edition gives them the chance to rectify that, and given the way their season has gone, the team has already achieved a lot that the previous season’s players haven’t. Yet it all means nothing if it stops at the semifinal stage and White knows that.
The coach spoke passionately last week about a photo that the players had put up in the changeroom of the side after their win over Munster. While the win meant just log points in the season overview, their first win away from home in Limerick was a breakthrough that the side treasured to the extent that they want to be reminded of it.
FIRSTS THIS SEASON
This season has produced a number of firsts away from home for the Bulls - including first wins in Galway against Connacht and the first South African side to win at the Scotstoun against defending champions Glasgow Warriors - the same side that upset them at Loftus in the final last season.
So there has been a lot to build on, but even though the Bulls finished second on the log and had an excellent season, there still are chinks in their armour.
On Saturday in the quarterfinal against Edinburgh they wanted a fast start, and within a blink of an eye were 21-8 down at home against Sean Everitt’s side - much like they were in the EPCR Quarterfinal in Scotland a few weeks back.
The difference is the Bulls rallied back to win comfortably, but they still haven’t shook that feeling that there will be soft moments in the game that the opposition can exploit.
The Sharks have beaten the Bulls twice this season in URC games and that remains a sticking point for the Pretoria side.
The game in Durban was close and the Bulls felt they didn’t get the rub of the green, but in Pretoria they were on the back foot for most of the half, clawed their way back into the game and then watched as three tries against the run of play killed off their hopes and gave the Sharks a famous win.
Much like the Currie Cup semifinal many months ago, it seemed the Bulls couldn’t find a way to win if they wanted to.
Luckily for the Pretoria side, this is a new week and they have the luxury of playing at home at a crucial stage of the season.
MATURED SINCE LAST SHARKS GAME
There would be few that would argue that the Bulls have not matured more since that last game against the Sharks and if nothing else, know their own DNA that is built on the back of a solid scrum and powerful forward play.
While their defence looked soft at times, the Bulls ability to fight their way back into the game was what brought them joy as well as an excellent 15 minutes before and after halftime.
White agreed that some of Edinburgh’s tries looked a bit soft defensively, but chose to concentrate on the positives from the game.
LOOKED NERVOUS IN FIRST HALF
“Yeah, it did. It did. I think we probably - it sounds crazy - but we look quite spooked today,” White said after the game.
“We looked nervous. I don't know why. I just thought about the decisions we made, the passes we made, the offloads we made, the reads we made on defence. I will say that when you've got 14 men on the field and you've lost a winger, chances are that actually this team is actually going to skin you out wide. So it goes hand in hand.
“This team (Edinburgh) is the team that, with Wes Goosen and with the outside backs they have, if you make a mistake defensively, even when you've got 15 on the field, they will actually expose that.
“So I'm not going to lose too much sleep on the basis of those two tries you talk about, and maybe the one where we missed that tackle. If you remember correctly, just before that, I think Keegan-Johannes missed a tackle and the guy pulled his foot out. Had we made that tackle, then it wouldn't have been as expensive as it was.
“But this team, they are good enough with the outside backs and that's where they play too. So to have one less back closing and closing and covering and closing eventually is going to lead to the fact that they're going to score points.”
White did say that while the opening half hour was nowhere near what they wanted, he was proud of the fightback and the control the team showed to win the game by more than a score in the end.
CONTROL AND COMPOSURE
“The two messages that I had today or the two words that I was very, very big on with them was control and composure. We needed to have control, and we needed to have composure because these are the things that big players do in big games, and for the first, I'd say, 25 minutes, those are the two things we looked like we didn't have. We didn't look like we were in control.
“We didn't look like we had composure, but then for the next 55 minutes, that is as composed and as controlled as we've been the whole year.
"I could sense at the end they weren't going to score again. It was almost like everyone had decided they're not going to score again, and then you get a sense in the coach's box that everyone's on the same page, and that's all you want.
“You just want players that are playing at this level and in these big competitions at this time to have those two elements to their game, control and composure.”
White and his coaching staff will reset this morning and begin preparations for Saturday’s massive game, which is likely to be close to a full house.