Saturday’s Jukskei Derby may hold only passing significance to the rest of the field in the Vodacom United Rugby Championship, but the stakes are high for both the Vodacom Bulls and Emirates Lions as they head to Loftus Versfeld.
The 2pm kickoff may well still produce a dry field for some exciting running rugby, but the amount of rain that has hit Gauteng this week may reduce it to a forward-based arm wrestle, and test both side’s hopes for the rest of the competition.
The Lions sense they have an opportunity here. They travelled to Loftus Versfeld last season and lost by the slimmest of margins, and won there in a shock result the year before.
Now, on the back of a win over the DHL Stormers, they are heading to Loftus full of confidence knowing they can take a mighty step forward in their campaign if they can pull off a win away from home.
And why shouldn’t they be confident? The Hollywoodbets Sharks exposed the Bulls out wide last weekend and had coach Jake White talking about how they were found out in terms of speed at the back.
THRIVE ON SPEED
The Lions thrive on speed, and have just as much firepower as the Sharks, but sometimes not the experience and confidence to pull it off in the same manner.
That will be the test for the Lions. In most of their games against the Bulls they have been competitive, but when it comes to putting the hammer down, they struggle as the Bulls experience and bench has pulled them through.
That was certainly the case a few weeks ago in Johannesburg, where the Bulls were under the pump until Willie le Roux and others appeared on the field.
That performance by Le Roux has become the basis for the Bulls seeing the Springbok veteran as their possible answer at 10, but not all the reviews have been complimentary.
Le Roux’s vision on attack is certainly something that can be applauded, but the team needs to find a rhythm around the pivot if they are to push forward with the attacking game they want to play.
LACK OF GOALKICKER
The Sharks exploited this and the lack of a frontline goalkicker almost cost the Bulls in their Cape Town win against the Stormers. Both sides will have taken note of this, but for the Bulls the stakes are a bit higher here.
Already without their kingpin in Kurt-Lee Arendse, who will return at the end of the Japanese season, the Bulls don’t have too many options to add speed at the back.
Sebastian de Klerk will be back and has added a lot this season to the side, but they will have worked on alignment and making sure the opposition don’t get the linebreaks they want to launch from.
Quan Horn, Henco van Wyk and Edwill van der Merwe can be deadly if given space, as the Stormers found out to their detriment.
For the Bulls though, there is a sense that they’re just a bit off kilter at the moment. Their flyhalf teething problems aside, the team has a habit of struggling to plant the knockout blow, and Loftus doesn’t quite seem as imposing as it did say, a season ago.
Since then Northampton, Munster, Glasgow and the Sharks have all made a mockery of the altitude factor and won in Pretoria, something that has not gone down well locally.
EFFECT OF BACK TO BACK DERBIES
There is another factor, of course, to all of this. White pointed out that no other country in the URC faces week after week of local derbies. The intensity of the local clashes is well-known and the physicality it brings is also no secret.
The attrition rate is also a concern for teams playing a never-ending season and while it makes sense to use the Six Nations weeks for the derbies, and it helps the Gauteng sides when they don’t want to play at the coast at Christmas, it does deepen the load on local teams.
For the Bulls this is their fourth local derby in five weeks and already it means they have lost a number of senior players, something that hampered them when they needed leadership in the tough moments against the Sharks.
Above that, they are still licking their wounds at the way they lost against the Sharks and know if they are to have any hope of finishing in the top four, they can’t afford to lose another home game.
The Lions, by contrast, have everything to play for, and are coming up the N1 with confidence, feeling - as their coach Ivan van Rooyen said - that they have “comfort under chaos”.
Whether that will be enough on Saturday waits to be seen, but with contrasting fortunes, it makes another Jukskei derby rather fascinating to watch.
Kick off: 2pm
Teams: tbc
Referee: Aimee Barret-Theron
Prediction: Bulls to shade a close game by seven