Vodacom Bulls director of rugby Jake White admitted that he would have been apoplectic had the DHL Stormers’ conversion of Ben-Jason Dixon’s try gone over, and so he should have been.
There have been quite a few occasions in the past few years where the Bulls have managed to conspire against themselves in close Vodacom United Rugby Championship derby matches.
And it hasn’t just been against the Stormers. In Durban just before Christmas they should have put a severely weakened Hollywoodbets Sharks team away and didn’t. They lost by a narrow margin.
In a different competition, where White wasn’t the coach but was the man in charge in his position as director of rugby, they did the same against those opponents in a Carling Currie Cup semifinal. They could have won that game in the final minutes of normal time. But didn’t. And ditto towards the end of extra time.
So in this past weekend’s game, as the Stormers came back at a Bulls team that had had several chances to put the hosts away, White would have felt like many Bulls supporters did - he’d seen the movie before. The Bulls being the dominant team in some key areas, but the Stormers coming away with the win.
VISITORS DIDN’T CLOSE IT OUT
That it didn’t end up completely following the same old movie script wasn’t really the Bulls’ doing. Their captain for the day, Marcell Coetzee, was quoted somewhere saying “We closed out the game well.”
They didn’t, which is why White should still have some stern words for his charges this morning as they gather to start preparations for Saturday’s next derby against the Sharks.
Most place-kickers would have nailed the conversion to the Dixon try. There was time enough for just the restart after that, and the Stormers by then were the dominant team so they would almost certainly have won. It was not any doing of the Bulls that Clayton Blommetjies missed what was effectively a sitter and thus gave the Bulls what was effectively a belated Christmas present by their arch-rivals.
Had Blommetjies not missed, there would be rightful questions directed at the Bulls’ temperament and their ability to close out close games. And if it were not for one small but particularly significant fact, those questions would be justified.
That fact being that Blommetjies did miss, the Bulls did win, and that could make a massive difference to their psychology when they get themselves into similar positions in the future.
The Bulls went through a barrier when they broke a sequence of defeats against the Stormers in Pretoria last March. They went through another barrier in posting their first away win over the Cape side in the URC era. Doing it in the manner they did, in such a close game, should make it even more meaningful.
Yes, it is true that they effectively bottled it, but the ‘W’ next to this result in the record books will cancel that fact out. The fact of the matter is that the Bulls returned home with a maximum of five points from a venue where they’ve experienced nothing but heartbreak in previous editions of the URC.
It was a game the Stormers needed to win more than they did, but in the quest for a top two spot it was also a huge result for the Bulls. Forget about Leinster, they are over the hill and far away in the battle for log supremacy, but champions Glasgow Warriors, who are currently second, are in their sights and the Bulls are closing fast and have a game in hand.
More than that, they have now won a game watched by 50 000 people at an away venue. So, as White pointed out afterwards, that will be a good experience for them to channel should they end up playing knock-out games away from home.
HOME RUN PUTS JAKE’S TEAM IN POUND SEATS
Not that it should come to that. Bulls will play most of the games still to come in the URC at their home ground at Loftus. The Sharks will most likely travel with a second string team this coming weekend, so there is an opportunity there for the Bulls to gather more momentum. And to show that the psychology of their derby meetings with the Sharks and Stormers has now changed.
For the Stormers there should be the knowledge that they were somehow still in a game they should have been well out of in the last quarter and then played themselves into a winning position and blew it. By missing that last conversion, they did give the Bulls a present, while the Bulls in turn were in a charitable mood before that.
Let’s not forget that their fourth try, the one scored by Ruan Vermaak, would have put the Bulls into an eight point lead with not much time to go, but the conversion was missed from a position not unlike the one that Blommetjies missed from.
Considering the Stormers lost a close game, there was a strange line coming out of the Cape media afterwards. The Stormers were praised for staying in the fight and the point was made that the two points they managed in defeat was as good as a draw.
Yes, but a draw was never going to be enough to keep them in the race for a top four finish, was it? It was a game they needed to win.
Presumably the positivity revolved around a perception that the Stormers were under-strength. But then so were the Bulls. It is true that the Stormers missed Manie Libbok’s X-factor when it came to attacking from transition and counter-attacking but they were close to full strength at forward, and that is where they effectively lost the game.
It has been many a long year since last the Stormers scrum was shunted around like they were in this game, and their lineout malaise continues. The Stormers have been guilty of being charitable to opponents quite often this season, with the game against the Sharks in Durban being a good example.
What was different in that match in late November though was that the Stormers were dominant at forward but couldn’t convert their opportunities. This time it was the other way around, with the Bulls being dominant but not converting their opportunities enough to get the unassailable lead that they were so often on the cusp of achieving.
The Bulls let the Stormers get out of jail. But then the Stormers, having accepted that gift, in turn gave the Bulls a gift in that final minute of the game. The upshot is that the Bulls are flying while the Stormers will now have to be content with scrapping for a top eight finish.
The Stormers also have a lot of work to do if they want to reverse the Cape Town result when they visit Loftus less than three weeks from now.
WEEKEND VODACOM UNITED RUGBY CHAMPIONSHIP RESULT (Round 1 rescheduled)
DHL Stormers 32 Vodacom Bulls 33
Log situation
1. Leinster 48 points after 10 games; 2. Glasgow Warriors 37 points after 10 games; 3. Vodacom Bulls 35 points after 9 games; 4. Hollywoodbets Sharks 29 points after 9 games; 5. Cardiff Rugby 29 points after 10 games; 6. Scarlets 27 points after 10 games; 7. Munster 26 points after 10 games; 8. Edinburgh 24 points after 10 games; 9. Ulster 23 points after 10 games; 10. DHL Stormers 23 points after 10 games; 11. Benetton 23 points after 10 games; 12. Ospreys 22 points after 10 games; 13. Emirates Lions 19 points after 8 games; 14. Connacht 19 points after 10 games; 15. Zebre 16 points after 10 games; 16. Dragons 8 points after 10 games.