Bulls' Jake White: 'It’s stupid things, stupid - unbelievably stupid'

Bulls head coach Jake White believes his side have got to get smarter despite their heroic 21-20 URC win over a heretofore unbeaten Leinster on Saturday night.

The Bulls pulled off a nail-biting victory over the Irish URC heavyweights in the most dramatic of denouements. The game came down to a make-or-break final scrum, with replacement front rowers Jan-Hendrik Wessels, Johan Grobbelaar and Mornay Smith winning the penalty that sealed the deal after two collapses.

Leinster only needed to get the ball out of the scrum and off the park to win it, but referee Ben Whitehouse awarded a penalty that was then converted by David Kriel.

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White lauded his team’s determination to fight to the final whistle, but he also acknowledged the glaring errors and disciplinary issues that threatened to derail their efforts.

“Most teams might have thought, ‘That’s it, game gone’. Most teams would’ve accepted that Leinster would’ve finished the game off,” White commented at the post-match press conference.

“And they didn’t. How much price can you put on a team that says, ‘Forget it, we are going to get a scrum penalty here’?

“And that is all I was asking. Just make sure that today we are desperate to get a result. I want to see for 80 minutes that you are desperate for a result. I don’t want to see anything else.

“We needed a scrum penalty in the last play of the game, and they needed to put the ball in and out, and kick the ball out.

“And after two resets, we managed to get the penalty on the third scrum,” White stated. “I’m not going to condone red cards, yellow cards, stupidity… Because when we get to the knockout stages, we will lose those games.

“We need to be more smart. We can’t be stupid and think that we are going to get to the back end of the competition and win it if we don’t make better decisions in those situations.

“It’s stupid things, stupid – unbelievably stupid. New Zealanders talk about game smartness, and I think that it is the bottom line.

“You’ve got to understand where you are on the field, what the score is, what your job is…

“That smartness is also something a player has to learn. You can’t coach him every single thing about his role.

United Rugby Championship

P

W

L

D

PF

PA

PD

BP T

BP-7

BP

Total

1

Leinster

13

12

1

0

58

2

Glasgow

13

9

4

0

49

3

Bulls

13

9

4

0

45

4

Sharks

13

9

4

0

44

5

Cardiff Rugby

13

6

6

1

35

6

Munster

13

6

7

0

34

7

Ospreys

13

6

6

1

33

8

Stormers

13

6

7

0

33

9

Ulster

13

6

7

0

32

10

Benetton

13

6

6

1

32

11

Edinburgh

13

5

8

0

31

12

Connacht

13

5

8

0

31

13

Lions

13

6

7

0

30

14

Scarlets

13

5

7

1

28

15

Zebre

13

5

8

0

27

16

Dragons RFC

13

1

12

0

9

“The maul try and the yellow card… There is a lot of effort in that. You know how tired you get when you have maul, scrum, maul, scrum.”

While he was pleased with the Bulls’ efforts, he refused to ignore the discipinary issues that plagued his side.

“I’m proud of the way they fought, and the bench came on and made an impact. But I’m also not sweeping anything under the table.

“And the reality is that it’s just because of our actions. Four times we’ve given penalties away for playing the nine – three of those were yellow cards.

“Today, we play the guy in the air: red card. You take everything away from the effort the other guys put in to get back in the game.

“For 80 minutes, even with 14 men, they found a way to win. And let’s be fair – that’s what sport is about.

“The good far outweighs the negative.”