Bulls without Boks for Champions Cup challenge

The Vodacom Bulls may have taken a massive gamble, but they won’t have their Springboks available for the next two rounds of the Investec Champions Cup, nor the Vodacom United Rugby Championship derby against the Emirates Lions at the end of the month.

Coach Jake White confirmed the team would be travelling to Bristol for their next Champions’ Cup clash on Saturday without the likes of Marco van Staden, Willie le Roux, Canan Moodie and Kurt-Lee Arendse.

With an enforced five-week break for all Springboks being decreed by SA Rugby, White had to make a choice when he wanted his stars to take the break, and the extra week they had over New Years as they shifted the Lions game to end of January has given him this option.

While other coaches are looking to rest the players in March, the Bulls have decided to give their stars off in the next two weeks of Champions’ Cup and the Lions game, with a two-week break in the league that comes after that.

White explained it wasn’t so much disrespecting one competition over another, but rather that he wanted to get the rest weeks behind the team so they can concentrate on the rest of the season.

“If I am going to do it, this is probably the best time post-Christmas, there’s an extra week holiday in the Cape with their families. There is nothing untoward, no-one is less important or one tournament is more important,” White said on Tuesday.

“Some coaches, and I have been reading between the lines, are doing it at different times. I could quite easily have kept Canan Moodie and Kurt-Lee Arendse for these two games and then given them their time off.

“I’ve just decided, en masse, I would rather do it all together and bring them back. It doesn’t downplay one or the other.

“Some coaches, like the Sharks or the Stormers, would do it differently. They might do it for five weeks, but that five weeks might be in March and that is up to them.

“They might look at their calendar and say those five weeks are the five weeks that they want to do it.”

White said the squad depth he has at the moment meant that playing either Henry Immelmann, Jaco van der Walt or Devon Williams at fullback would not necessarily make the team weaker, nor would using wingers Sebastian de Klerk or Sergeal Petersen in the absence of the Boks.

Add to that Marcell Coetzee fresh after a three-week ban and Van Staden can get some time off as well.

“When I looked at our players, who we have, I mean Marcell needs to play, leaving Marco out now is not going to influence the team selection because Marcell has had time off, being banned for three weeks and not playing, so it probably fits to have him play.

“And I think the two wings play well together, that’s the one thing, so I’d rather have them together, Canan and Kurt-Lee, than one and not the other one.”

The Bulls will name their side to face Bristol on Friday.