Jake White has been outlining why he feels his Vodacom Bulls are now better equipped than ever to push for the Vodacom URC title.
White’s team have twice fallen at the last hurdle in the first three years of the competition, losing finals to the DHL Stormers and Glasgow Warriors.
But, for a variety of reasons, he feels they are in the best shape yet going into a campaign which begins for them on Saturday when they take on Edinburgh Rugby at Pretoria’s Loftus Versfeld.
“Everyone in our circles would accept we have exceeded our expectations in the first three seasons having played in two Vodacom VURC finals, given we have had a very young and inexperienced squad,” he said.
“But we’ve made some good additions to our squad who have blended in nicely and we also now have eight or nine players in the Springbok set-up for the first time in a long while.
'SO MUCH STRONGER'
“We have had relatively inexperienced players like Ruan Nortje, Elrigh Louw and Canan Moodie winning two tests in a row against the All Blacks.
“The kind of confidence and learning they will have got there will help us going into big games and play-off matches in the URC where we need to win.
“In a short space of time, literally three VURC campaigns, we have got nine players in the South Africa squad.
“That will make us so much stronger because we can almost pick a Springbok in every position now, which is a great situation to be in when you want to win this competition.”
White also points to a recruitment drive which has seen the likes of second rows Cobus Wiese (Sale) and Sintu Manjezi (Glasgow), flanker Nama Xaba (DHL Stormers) and prop Alulutho Tshakweni (Cheetahs) come on board, along with former Hollywoodbets Sharks backs Boeta Chamberlain and Aphiwe Dyantyi.
“You look for the right kind of player as a person, someone who fits into the way your club wants to develop,” he said.
“We are very fortunate that we have added much more seasoned campaigners, guys like Aphiwe Dyantyi, who is coming in as a Springbok winger, a guy like Cobus Wiese coming in as a seasoned Premiership player and you saw what Akker van der Merwe did last year joining from Sale, you saw what Marcel Coetzee did coming back from overseas at Uster.
“The secret is making sure you get the balance between youth and experience and I would say this year is probably the closest we have been to the ideal combination we are looking for.
“We have got youngsters like Cameron Hanekom and we have got the middle-age group sorted as well, which will make us much stronger and allow us to have much more depth in our squad selections.”
After beating Benetton Rugby and Leinster Rugby in the play-off quarter and semifinals at the end of last season, the Bulls just came up short in the final at Loftus, losing 21-16 to Glasgow.
“I reflected a lot with the group after the final and I think what really hit me and what hit the squad was we underestimated the value of playing,” said White.
“In the last game of the regular season, we played the Sharks who had a really strong Springbok-laden group.
“We then played Benetton that have a majority of the Italy players, then Leinster who have the majority of the Ireland players and then we played Glasgow who have lots and lots of international players as well.
“I think the collective attrition and the collective effort it took to play four consecutive games like that took it out of us in the final match.
“You wouldn’t play South Africa, Italy, Ireland and Scotland with the same group of players and you wouldn’t expect to win all those games.
SPOT-ON PLANNNING
“That’s why I am talking about the depth in our squad, about the additions we have made to our team and about the average age of the group going up. That’s why I am mentioning Springboks guys that have now become a little bit more gun-hardened.
“Last season went well, the planning worked spot on, we got a home final. I think what happened in the last game was a collective thing of what happened in the last month of the tournament.
“It was probably a bridge too far, but I’m hoping that with the squad we have now we will be a little bit tougher to last four weeks at that level and we will also be able to change the squad around in the season, so we don’t lose our legs in the back end of the competition.”