Leaky Bulls defence a worry for Marais
The Blue Bulls' third place standing on the Currie Cup table is deceiving the underlying problems that stand in the way of them becoming a threat to the table-topping Sharks.
|||The Blue Bulls' third place standing on the Currie Cup table is deceiving the underlying problems that stand in the way of them becoming a threat to the table-topping Sharks ahead of their encounter in Durban on Saturday.
As much as Nollis Marais’ side have scored tries at will in their three matches so far this season, they have a poor defensive record that could see them suffer the same fate that the Pumas, Griquas and Boland have suffered at the hands of the clinical Sharks.
Marais has openly expressed his dissatisfaction with his team’s performances, especially in their past two matches against the Cheetahs and King. But it is their poor defence that is most concerning at the moment.
The Bulls have been ruthless, at times, with ball in hand and when execution is right, they have shown glimpses of a team fit to be champions.
But their biggest issue remains their creeky defence that has leaked in 15 tries so far and must be rectified before the team embarks on the trip to Durban.
“Fifteen tries in three games is a big issue for us. It is something that Pine (Pienaar) is working hard at and something that we are talking about with our leadership group. We were one of the top two teams in Super Rugby with our defence and now our defence is like this in Currie Cup so there is a huge step up that we have to make. We dropped ourselves in the last three matches and we need to fix it this weekend,” said Marais at the team announcement at Loftus Versfeld.
Besides the glaring weakening of the Bulls defence, Marais also highlighted the lack of accuracy in execution which has impacted on his team’s ability to blow teams away when they’ve had them against the ropes.
“We are not accurate enough and that is costing turnovers and people play from those turnovers. If we kept the ball as good as we did against Western Province, we can easily put 30 to 40 points on people. If we start losing momentum and making the wrong decisions then other people will get momentum, start believing and then we will be in trouble.”
In an effort to improve on his team’s performance on attack and defence, Marais has wasted no time in recalling wing Travis Ismaiel and centre Dries Swanepoel to the starting line-up after the duo recovered from injury while prop Jacobie Adriaanse will make his first start after moving from the Kings at the beginning of the Currie Cup.
Blue Bulls STARTING XV: Duncan Matthews, Travis Ismaiel, Dries Swanepoel, Burger Odendaal, Jamba Ulengo, Tian Schoeman, Piet van Zyl, Arno Botha (captain), Jannes Kirsten, Ruan Steenkamp, Marvin Orie, RG Snyman, Jacobie Adriaanse, Jaco Visagie, Lizo Gqoboka; Replacements: Bandise Maku, Martin Dreyer, Nic de Jager, Hanro Liebenberg, Andre Warner, Joshua Stander, Ulrich Beyers. - The Star