Can the South African teams mount a concerted challenge to claim the Champions Cup this season?
Well, the Sharks are certainly loaded enough to do so, but in terms of cohesion, the Bulls are arguably the best-placed local franchise to do so – having won five out of six United Rugby Championship games already. But Jake White’s team will be properly tested by English giants Saracens at the StoneX Stadium in London on Saturday (7.30pm kick-off), where 15 000 spectators will be crammed in to roar on Maro Itoje’s team to victory.
Apart from the technical battles that the visitors need to get right, they will have to handle the intense atmosphere that only top-level European rugby can conjure up – having gone down 59-22 to the Northampton Saints in England in last season’s quarter-finals.
“If we start well, then we can silence the crowd a bit. They will be behind their team and make a lot of noise. We need to win the small battles in the set-pieces and breakdowns, so that we can get momentum early on,” Bulls hooker Johan Grobbelaar said from London yesterday.
“The venue is new. The players you are playing against will be new for us. But I must say that the coaches are doing very good work in preparing us. We’ve looked at a lot of footage of them, so we’ve got some good plans.
“The players will do good work this week to get into their heads and understand what they are trying to do.
“They have a good reputation of winning trophies. It makes us even more excited and more up for the game. We can actually use that to our advantage.”
One of the major challenges will be to counter England star jumper Itoje in the line-outs. The Bulls made a strong start in that set-piece in last week’s 28-14 URC win over Connacht in Galway, despite the absence of the injured No 5 locks Ruan Nortjé and Reinhardt Ludwig.
Junior Springbok JF van Heerden stepped into the fray admirably, with White stating that they had won 12 line-outs in the first half and lost just one. But the veteran coach said that it became “a bit sloppy” in the second half, and he hopes to see greater consistency this weekend.
Grobbelaar can also inculcate some of the Bok plans from their recent Twickenham win over England to counter the Itoje factor – while the Bulls can also take confidence out of last December’s 27-16 win over Saracens at Loftus Versfeld.
Moments against @connachtrugby 📸#ForeverBlue pic.twitter.com/amu6LTUeWv
“We at the Bulls always pride ourselves on having a good line-out performance,” said the 26-year-old from Paarl.
“I think all of us got throw into the deep end there (against Connacht) – especially the youngsters, with nasty weather, ugly winds, and nice and wet, with the rain coming down. It’s definitely something to look at, and work on this week to get a better line-out performance on Saturday.
“He (Itoje) is very experienced in the line-outs. We will see how their team looks this week, but we definitely have a few plans and options added, in terms of how to handle it.
“They are a well-balanced team. They have a good kicking game, physical, good at breakdown, set-piece – and they have the home-ground advantage.
“For most of us, it’s the first time playing on their pitch – also an artificial one. So, we are going to have to be smart in adjusting with the scrums, and the surface under our feet.”