Even though his team’s progress ended with a whimper in their 59-22 loss to Northampton Saints on Saturday night, Vodacom Bulls coach Jake White continued to reject allegations that he had “disrespected” the Investec Champions’ Cup by selecting a largely second-string outfit.
European media went into meltdown mode when the team was selected, and EPCR - the governing body - are, according to reports in English newspapers, likely to investigate the Bulls for this.
Yet the Bulls hammering wasn’t the worst of the weekend as Exeter Chiefs were bludgeoned by Toulouse in a slightly bigger scoreline, losing 64-26 on Sunday.
White was adamant after the game that his critics were getting it wrong.
“I’ve got to stress, because I think people are reading it completely wrong that I’m not whinging about being here, in fact I’m loving this competition. I’m loving the fact that we get exposed to this and I’m loving that these players can learn what they learned tonight,” White explained when asked about the supposed “disrespect”.
“It is so close to test rugby. I mean maybe the style varies a little bit, being less conservative and pragmatic compared to test rugby but the intensity is there and is the fight to win. So I want to be clear that we want to be here in this competition.
“We want to win and be that powerful side that can run out every weekend and be competitive, but you need to serve your time. It’s the second year we’ve been playing in this competition. For some guys, it’s the first time they ever flew business class. For others, it’s the first time they’ve ever come overseas, so when you put that in perspective, it demonstrates we still have a way to go.”
NO DISRESPECT AT ALL
White continued to defend his selection further, and said he had little choice but to leave 14 regulars at home for the clash.
“I haven’t disrespected it at all,” he added. “This is not a ‘B-Team’ or a second team.
“This is the team I felt needed game time, based on combinations. I wasn’t prepared to take a risk on players I will need in the back end of a competition.
“In terms of the changes, I also want to address this. As a coach, we are saying to players you’re going to get opportunities. Cameron Hanekom, the No 8 played outstandingly well, but that was his first game back in about seven or eight weeks. The left-wing Stravino Jacobs – that was his first time back in about six months from an injury. Now again, you know if I leave it another week, people say wow, why, you know he hasn’t played for so long. Why are you leaving that for so long? And the circumstances are very – you have to develop these players.
“My wishes are to get all the guys that play abroad to come back and play in this competition for the South African franchises. I think Tyrone Green today was man of the match in the Harlequins game and he’s a South African guy and there’s loads of others. Imagine if we could just bring those guys back to the franchises. I would like to run out here with RG Snyman, Jason Jenkins, Liebenberg who plays for Leicester – the list goes on.
“You have to understand we don’t have the luxury of signing Kiwis, Fijians, and Tongans like the European market have. We don’t have that for a lot of reasons. One reason is visas, the other is the money that we can pay players in rands as opposed to what they get offshore. So it’s different – we got to compare apples with apples, not apples with pears.
White wasn’t happy though with his team’s performance against the Saints.
“I wasn’t happy with the way we played in that first period, but it was nice to be in the game when the halftime whistle went, especially because we were 28-10 down at one stage and it looked like they could run away from us,” said White.
“The message was, let’s not let them start well after halftime and let’s not do what we did against Leinster. It was really disappointing that we then gave them two quick tries after the break and we just showed again, some real naivety there in terms of coming out hot for the second period.
“In terms of understanding our captain was very clear at halftime about making sure the next 10 minutes are vital so it was really frustrating that Northampton basically scored from the kick-off.
“They took a line out and then they ran a great play and once they scored it was catch up time and as you've seen in the Premiership it’s really difficult to play catch up rugby against Northampton with all their firepower.”