It has been coming for a long time, but last weekend in Cape Town the Vodacom Bulls scrum announced themselves with a growing ferocity, so much so that they are currently the most feared scrum in the Vodacom United Rugby Championship.
While they will take a massive challenge from a giant Hollywoodbets Sharks pack in Pretoria this weekend, the Bulls are pretty happy with the way their scrum is purring along at the moment, especially as a platform to launch attacks from and win penalties.
The stats might not say it just yet - the Bulls are still ranked fifth according to the URC website when it comes to scrum penalties won - but few will argue the impressive form their pack is in at the moment, even though they have lost several players to injuries.
The Vodacom Bulls have been dominant against the Hollywoodbets Sharks in the #VURC 🐂💥
— SuperSport Rugby (@SSRugby) February 12, 2025
This is how their records line-up after nine matches over the last four seasons 👇 pic.twitter.com/Tawt98J5pP
So much so that even blooding young rookie Jan-Hendrik Wessels against double World Cup winner Frans Malherbe last weekend wasn’t seen as too much of a risk.
White said he is very satisfied that his team’s scrum is becoming a force to be reckoned with.
“I am, and Werner has done a good job with the scrum. You must remember we had Jan-Hendrik (Wessels) starting and a lot of people said it would be a risk to start him against Frans Malherbe. The guys who work here don’t think that,” White said.
“I said before the game that Jan-Hendrik and Grobbies (Johan Grobbelaar) have played test rugby together against Australia. So I had no doubt putting them against a test duo like (Joseph) Dweba and Frans, they would stand up. I’m so glad the pack did their job and even in the second half, when we changed the pack around and lost a couple of locks, we still looked like we could scrum them.
“That’s a big step forward from a few years ago. I would have said then that we probably didn’t have the pack but now I think we have the best scrumming stats in the competition - in terms of penalties for against other teams. “
PACK COHESION
Wessels has passed all the protocols needed after leaving the field with an HIA and is available for selection for the Sharks game this coming weekend, but while some of the focus has fallen on him, White is happier about the fact that his pack is playing together as a unit, and it doesn’t matter which players slot in, there is a cohesion that wasn’t there before.
“We have had injuries at the locks. A guy like Jeff (van Heerden) is a young lock, so it isn’t just the front row, it is any combination we put on the field, they look as if they’ve been playing together. In the past, every time we put on our bench, we didn't seem as cohesive as the other group.”
White is also very impressed with young Francois Klopper, who is slowly making a name for himself at tighthead, which helps because Wilco Louw has been shouldering most of the workload up to now for the side.
“And now - we have changed the bench with some senior guys on it - but even in the next few weeks, we’d like to change it up a bit and start some of the younger players - a guy like Francois Kloppers and see how he goes without always having to rely on Wilco to do the hard yards in the beginning.
“It isn’t a risk, we are going to have to do it in the next block of games anyway, we aren’t going to get away with Wilco playing 68, 71 minutes. It would be naive of us to think he will play every game and will play 65/70 minutes every week.”
White will continue to make changes over the next few weeks, hoping to be able to get the best out of the extended squad, and at the same time, keep the momentum the side has built up.
That will be important when the side gets to the playoff rounds, but for now the experimentation is working, so long may it continue.