Defence coach high on Bulls post Christmas agenda

If it wasn’t rammed home in the starkest way possible, it would be easier to ignore, but the Vodacom Bulls need a top defence coach as soon as possible.

The Pretoria franchise was rocked by the three try blast from the DHL Stormers in Cape Town last Friday night, a five minute period that effectively ended their chances in the match and underlined just how brittle their defence has been over the past few months.

While Director of Rugby Jake White has been handling the defensive sessions, it wouldn’t be a stretch to say the defensive shape has been a bit wonky since the departure of Joey Mongalo to the Sharks and that the Bulls have struggled in his absence.

Given the nightmare schedule and travelling which White has complained about, there is little time for the coaching staff to work with the team - as he rightly points out only eight days of training in the next month hardly gives the team time to work on their issues.

And without a fulltime defence coach, those issues may become gaping holes and put massive pressure on them going into the toughest month of their season.

The Bulls have sorted out their scrum to the point that they have won the most scrum penalties in the URC this season, but their defence has suffered. While they have racked up 41 tries in their 10 games this season, and hit the bonus point four try mark six times, they have also conceded 30 tries.

Going into tighter games this will be an issue for them and White has admitted that finding a defensive coach is top priority for the Pretoria side.

“I am in the process of looking for a defence coach for next year,” White said after the loss to the Stormers, where the five minute killzone was costly for his team.

“Some guys have contracts that they can’t get out of so I am going to find a defence coach that will complement us. I thought it would be easier for the transition. Instead of just ‘making do’ with someone else, I have put the feelers out to get the right guy for the job.”

With an 87 per cent tackle rate, the Bulls need to up their strikes on defence and finding the right coach would be the first thing that would help.

And White understandably has his hands full, not only with the Director of Rugby role, but also coaching both defence and taking full charge of the team.

He blamed inexperience for his side’s slump that lost them the Cape Town game, one which backfired after he rested players for two weeks to ensure the strongest team went to Cape Town.

"I think we just showed moments of inexperience," White lamented after the loss.

"That's the only disappointing thing I can think of. There was a tap penalty on their line, where we've got five or six plays that we run, but we tap the ball and run and knock it on.

"Then I was making a substitution, and we got the timings wrong where there was one less defender on the far side when they ran the ball from the kick-off [for Suleiman Hartzenberg's try], so I suppose that was inexperience in that there was a miscommunication.

"It was one of those games. We scored three tries to four, but we looked a little bit inexperienced with some of the actions that we had."

White lamented further that while the team is growing, they still had a lot of groundwork to catch up on to get to the Stormers’ level, something which is surprising given the success he had during the pandemic rugby period where the Bulls dominated the local game.

"We're inexperienced still, and we're still growing. We've got a lot of evolution to do. The Stormers are probably the most experienced coaching staff in the whole competition. They've been together for eight, ten years and some of them with the juniors as well," said White.

"John Dobson doesn't coach Currie Cup. I am the Director of Rugby. I have to coach and make sure all the juniors, seniors and Currie Cup guys are available to play. If I was only coaching the senior side, then I wouldn't worry about who was available for the Currie Cup because it wouldn't be my brief. I think it's important for people to understand my brief as DoR.

"Western Province didn't make the playoffs last year in the Currie Cup. Those are decisions I have to make and explain to my board. There are 32 games left. Considering some of the Springboks are out with World Cup camps, you're going to have to box very clever with which teams you want to use and how many players you're going to use."

Either way, the Bulls need to look for long-term solutions. They won’t happen overnight, but a good start would be to shore up the defence.

And that appointment can’t come too soon.