Jake is right, it is no fluke

The Cell C Sharks may have other ideas but the championship qualities that the Vodacom Bulls showed in ensuring they kept their fate in their hands should not only get them into the grand final of the Rainbow Cup in Treviso on 19 June but make them favourites to win it.

There might be some who would quibble on the basis that the Bulls took such a long time to tame the DHL Stormers in their big north/south showdown at Loftus at the weekend. The Cape side had to make a phenomenal 250-odd tackles, were starved of possession and that pressure understandably saw them penalised off the park.

And yet until the Bulls won a scrum penalty around the halfway line with three minutes to go it was entirely possible, indeed probable, that the Stormers would hang on for what, in terms of the match statistics anyway, would have been a freakish win.

THEY FIND A WAY TO WIN

Mention of that scrum though brings up the central point of why the Bulls are tournament favourites as we head into an exciting final two weeks that starts with a final round of league fixtures where both streams of the competition, Europe and South Africa, are yet to be decided.

The point about the Bulls is that they tend to find a way to win. Like they did in last year’s Currie Cup final, which they won against the Sharks off the last move of the game. Like they did in a Currie Cup game at Newlands last year where they were dominated for the first 60 minutes and were down to 14 men for much of the second half.

They didn’t do it in Johannesburg a few weeks ago but that was an aberration. Significantly, their coach Jake White treated it as an aberration and didn’t let it faze him or cause him to panic. Just like his team didn’t panic when the odds were starting to stack against them in the final minutes of the most recent game at Loftus.

WHITE’S CONFIDENCE RUBS OFF ON PLAYERS

White’s calm and confident demeanour is one of his strong suits as a coach. Players who played under him at the Springboks will tell you about the time that he harangued the players at halftime in a test match in Australia. The reason he was cross with them and gave them a bollocking was because they were leading the match but seemed surprised by that.

When White faced his first press conference as Bok coach in 2004 and he told the media that his team would get the results that South Africa’s standing as a rugby nation warranted, and in one of his first team meetings he told the players they would win the World Cup.

On the eve of his first game in charge, against Ireland in Bloemfontein where there were lots of injuries and other distractions in the build-up and not many were giving the Boks much chance, he told me in a private conversation that “We are a better team than them and we will definitely win”.

It is probably that confidence in his players, and his ability to make them believe, that enabled him to coach the Sharks to a famous win over the mighty Crusaders in Christchurch in 2014. The Sharks were down to 14 men for most of the game! White though helped them believe they could still win at a venue where no South African team had won for almost two decades.

MAKING THEIR OWN LUCK

That confidence was on show again when White faced a zoom press conference after his team had edged the Stormers with a try from lock Ruan Nortje off the last move of the game.

“I always believed we would win as this is a special team and we have done this time and time again. This was no fluke,” said White.

No it wasn’t. It happens too often for it not to be down to the indefinable championship qualities that in every sport separates the leaders from the rest. In the round ball game, Liverpool had it in the 2019/2020 season when they won the league. They kept winning late, winning almost freakishly. Some said they were lucky. But you make your own luck.

Those championship qualities deserted Liverpool this past season, with the boot suddenly being on the other foot in close games. Until that is their backs were really against the wall and they faced not being part of next season’s Champions League. Suddenly their ‘luck’ returned and they were able to win eight of their last 10 games, with the one where they won it with a goal from the goalkeeper five minutes into injury time pretty much summing it up.

In their league and their level of competition, the Bulls are starting to look like a team that can do that, meaning make their own luck, as they did when they won that scrum penalty and then just refused to let go of the winning opportunity once they were presented with it.

SHARKS WILL BELIEVE THEY CAN DO IT

While the Bulls are the current leaders the Sharks will tell you that they are a young team and their time will come, and they are right in saying that. Although they were hammered at Loftus a few weeks ago, they came a lot closer in last year’s domestic final than most critics expected them to and they responded well to the pressure on them after two successive defeats to beat the Emirates Lions on their home field while fielding what their second string team.

So the Sharks have reason to feel confident going into their game against the Bulls in Durban this weekend. They are at least in with a chance after what they did at Emirates Airlines Park. However, what they need to do may just be a bridge too far and should prove to be - they need to win with a bonus point and deny the Bulls any log points.

In other words they have to win big against the Bulls, they can’t just squeak home like they did in a King’s Park sweat bath last December, which remains their only win over the Bulls in a competition game since the return from lockdown. They will have to go too without their first choice front-row due to the Springbok resting protocols, and when Thomas du Toit isn’t there their pack just isn’t the same pack.

BULLS HAVE A NEW TALISMAN

They might see a glimmer of hope in the sense that Duane Vermeulen almost certainly won’t be there to lead the Bulls. The man many consider to be the most influential player in the country is having his ankle injury assessed and it doesn’t look good. But the other thing White gets right is recruitment, and it just so happens that he has lost his main talisman at the very point that a new one has emerged.

Marcell Coetzee was brilliant for the Bulls in his first match and did a great captaincy job after Vermeulen went off too. A former Sharks player himself, Coetzee is returning to his old stomping ground as the biggest threat to the home team’s ambitions. The most unlucky player to miss out on Bok selection at the weekend has a point to prove and in that sense White has been helped by the national coaches.

The Sharks were good against the Lions and their coach Sean Everitt certainly has a few things to think about when it comes to selection for this week. Positive things. It should be a great finale to the local part of the competition. It’d be a huge surprise though were the Bulls not the South African representatives in Italy the following week. Because they tend to get what they want. And no, it isn’t a fluke.

Weekend results

Northern Rainbow Cup

Glasgow Warriors 15 Leinster 12
Edinburgh 31 Ulster 34
Cardiff 37 Zebre 12
Connacht 26 Ospreys 19

Rainbow Cup SA

Bulls 31 Stormers 27
Lions 21 Sharks 33

Final fixtures in northern Rainbow Cup

Zebre v Munster (Friday, 19.00)
Leinster v Dragons (Friday, 20.15)
Ospreys v Benetton (Saturday, 19.35)
Scarlets v Edinburgh (Sunday, 13.00)

Final fixtures Rainbow Cup SA (both Saturday)

Stormers v Lions (Cape Town, 16.00)
Sharks v Bulls (Durban, 18.15)