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'Leinster is a different beast' warns Pienaar

The Leinster team salute the fans after their victory during during the Leinster V Bulls (Photo by Tim Clayton/Corbis via Getty Images)

The Bulls recorded a 78-12 win over Zebre on Saturday at Ellis Park. The win means the Bulls are seventh on the overall log with 48 points.

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There has been a major shift in the Bulls’ camp since ending their 10-match losing streak in all competitions last week against the Griquas in the Currie Cup.

Since then the franchise has recorded a win over Sharks on Friday in the Currie Cup and on Saturday delivered arguably their best performance of the United Rugby Championship season against Zebre.

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The Bulls dominated the encounter from the start, scoring 11 tries in their onslaught.

“We are happy with the performance,” Bulls assistant coach Pine Pienaar told reporters in the wake of the victory at Ellis Park.

“But there were certain areas that we were not happy with when not looking at the score. We have to make sure we fix the things we have been working on the last few weeks, so there is still hard work left for us going into next week.

“We don’t know where we are going to finish, so for us, it’s important that we nail next week first — it’s going to be a different beast against Leinster.”

Pienaar revealed that discipline was the one area the team work hard on to improve, which was evident on Saturday.

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The side only conceded seven penalties, while in Round 16 they conceded 17 penalties against Ulster.

“The message was that we have to try to stay a little bit cleaner on the discipline side,” Pienaar said.

“Don’t give opposition easy entries into our 22. Unfortunately at certain stages, we got on the wrong side of the referee.

“But the big focus point for us is to make sure we don’t concede penalties in certain areas of the field.”

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The Bulls will have their work cut out for them when they take on Leinster in the final round-robin of the competition.

Pienaar admitted it is difficult finding a weakness in the Leinster setup. However, has urged his side to be on their game if they want a result.

“They are a quality outfit. They have yet to lose,” Pienaar said when asked about Leinster.

“If you look at the stats they are the best attacking and defensive side in the competition. Not a lot wrong with the team that’s one of the European leaders.

“We will have to try to find areas that we can [exploit], and we just have to make sure we are at our very best next weekend.”

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a
aine 581 days ago

He will say that, all teams say that publicly but privately they say something else this is self handicapping so if they lose its not so bad

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Tom 57 minutes ago
England player ratings vs South Africa | 2024 Autumn Nations Series

That 2019 performance was literally the peak in attacking rugby under Eddie. If you thought that was underwhelming, the rest of it was garbage.


I totally get what you're saying and England don't need or have any God given right to the best coaches in the world... But I actually think the coaches we do have are quite poor and for the richest union in the world, that's not good enough. 


England are competitive for sure but with the talent pool up here and the funds available, we should be in the top 3. At the very least we should be winning six nations titles on a semi-regular basis. If Ireland can, England definitely should.


England's attack coach (Richard Wigglesworth) is Borthwick's mate from his playing days at Saracens, who he brought to Leicester with him when he became coach. Wigglesworth was a 9 who had no running or passing game, but was the best box kicker in the business. He has no credentials to be an attack coach and I've seen nothing to prove otherwise. Aside from Marcus Smith’s individual brilliance, our collective attack has looked very uninspiring.

 

England's defence coach (Joe El-Abd) is Borthwick's housemate from uni, who has never been employed as a defence coach before. He's doing the job part time while he's still the head coach of a team in the second division of French rugby who have an awful defensive record. England's defence has gone from being brutally efficient under Felix Jones to as leaky as a colander almost overnight.


If Borthwick brings in a new attack and defence coach then I'll absolutely get behind him but his current coaches seem to be the product of nepotism. He's brought in people he's comfortable with because he lacks confidence as an international head coach and they aren't good enough for international rugby.


England are competitive because they do some things really well, mostly they front up physically, make a lot of big hits, have a solid kicking game, a good lineout, good maul, Marcus Smith and some solid forwards. A lot of what we do well I would ascribe to Borthwick personally. I don't think he's a bad coach, I think he lacks imagination and is overly risk averse. He needs coaches who will bring a point of difference.


I guess my point is, yes England are competitive, but we’re not aiming for competitive and I honestly don't believe this coaching setup has what it takes to make us any better than competitive.


On the plus side it looks like we have an amazing crop of young players coming through. Some of them who won the u20 world cup played for England A against Australia A on the weekend and looked incredible... Check out the highlights on youtube.

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