Jake White's Bulls deny 'revenge' for 2021 shock loss a motivation
The Vodacom Bulls deny they are trying to avenge last year's shock loss to Benetton in the final of the 2021 Rainbow Cup.
It will be the side's first meeting since the Italians hammered the Bulls 37 - 8 in the one-off tournament last season, a result few saw coming.
Not only did the side from Treviso get one over their Tshwane-based opponents when they squared up on the final of the Rainbow Cup last year, but a number of their players were involved when the Italy national side recently claimed a historic victory over Wales in the Six Nations.
“A lot has happened in a year,” said Bulls No.8 Marcell Coetzee. “Benetton won fair and square last time, and we took that on the chin."
“But we’ve grown enormously as a team since then. It was a bit of a reality check for some in terms of the tempo of rugby being played in the Northern Hemisphere, but we’ve grown through that," Coetzee said ahead of Saturday’s match at Loftus Versfeld. "That experience helped us to prepare well going into the Carling Currie Cup and the Vodacom United Rugby Championship.
"Now we’re excited about not just the prospect of playing the Rainbow Cup champions but also fighting for a spot in the playoffs.
"We know every game is crucial going forward and you can’t afford any slip-ups now. So we want to welcome Benetton to South Africa. We hope they have a good time off the field, but on the field it’s all business.
"After playing only South African teams for two years straight, to go over to Italy and play an overseas side for the first time in a while was a proper rugby lesson for us.
"I like to think we’re a much better team now and have learned our lessons from that Rainbow Cup Final. But we’re not looking at this weekend motivated by revenge. If you do that you get side-tracked. We’ve grown a lot as a team since then.
"We want to play a certain brand of rugby and we want to apply the lessons we’ve learned. This is the start of a stretch of three games which are must-wins for us in terms of our playoff aspirations, and I’m just looking forward to another opportunity this weekend to play against a quality Benetton side. Last time they had an extremely passionate Italian crowd behind them, so for us to have the Loftus crowd back for this match is going to be very special.”
Winger Madosh Tambwe says the Bulls are in a different head space in 2022.
“For a lot of us, that Benetton match last year was a new experience. We hadn’t played in front of fans for months, and their fan element was quite a big one for us.
"It was also different opposition for us for the first time in about two years after just playing South African teams. But that’s over now. We’ve now played teams like Leinster and Ulster to name a few. I think we’re in a different head space as a team.
"Now we’re focused on accumulating as many points as possible and making the playoffs. We’re at the business end of this competition, and we’re enjoying that challenge as a team. But at least we now get to give them a bit of a South African taste of what things are like this side.”
Burger halfback Zak Burger said the team were ready for the challenge ahead of the weekend’s clash.
“Going up against Benetton, we know that they are a good team. They won the Rainbow Cup last year and they have all of their international players back now from the Six Nations,” said Burger. “So, we know that it is going to be a very hard match and we know that we are going to have to be really clinical and take our chances whenever they are presented to us.
“In this Benetton team, there are about 12 players that were in that Italy team that beat Wales in Cardiff. They are obviously full of confidence now after winning that game. I really think that it’s going to be a very hard battle for us this coming Saturday.”
The 23-year-old scrumhalf has made significant contributions to the Bulls this season. Burger went on to say that the side had learned some valuable lessons from their most recent match, a narrow loss against the DHL Stormers a week ago.
“What we took out from our previous game is that we were not clinical enough.
“Games like that are like a test match and you have to take your chances whenever you get them. On that day we did not take enough of our chances. We have to be clinical this weekend against a good Benetton side.”
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Everywhere you turn some irish journo is advocating Ireland as the greatest, reasoning that the wc is a 4 year cycle event so, they say wc doesn’t matter it’s the rugby in between that should account for the accolade. If there was no wc then some substance could be gained, however in my opinion the moment that defined Ireland’s fate against the abs was 37 phases of repeated head bashing against a brick wall. If a change in strategy or a tinker with the game plan was executed then things could've been vastly different. And to point a finger the let down was in the hands of the number 10.
Go to commentsI have heard it asked if RA is essentially one of the part owners and I suppose therefor should be on the other side of these two parties. If they purchased the rebels and guaranteed them, and are responsible enough they incur Rebels penalties, where is this line drawn? Seems rough to have to pay a penalty for something were your involvement sees you on the side of the conned party, the creditors. If the Rebels directors themselves have given the club their money, 6mil worth right, why aren’t they also listed as sitting with RA and the Tax office? And the legal threat was either way, new Rebels or defunct, I can’t see how RA assume the threat was less likely enough to warrant comment about it in this article. Surely RA ignore that and only worry about whether they can defend it or not, which they have reported as being comfortable with. So in effect wouldn’t it be more accurate to say there is no further legal threat (or worry) in denying the deal. Unless the directors have reneged on that. > Returns of a Japanese team or even Argentinean side, the Jaguares, were said to be on the cards, as were the ideas of standing up brand new teams in Hawaii or even Los Angeles – crazy ideas that seemingly forgot the time zone issues often cited as a turn-off for viewers when the competition contained teams from South Africa. Those timezones are great for SR and are what will probably be needed to unlock its future (cant see it remaining without _atleast _help from Aus), day games here are night games on the West Coast of america, were potential viewers triple, win win. With one of the best and easiest ways to unlock that being to play games or a host a team there. Less good the further across Aus you get though. Jaguares wouldn’t be the same Jaguares, but I still would think it’s better having them than keeping the Rebels. The other options aren’t really realistic 25’ options, no. From reading this authors last article I think if the new board can get the investment they seem to be confident in, you keeping them simply for the amount of money they’ll be investing in the game. Then ditch them later if they’re not good enough without such a high budget. Use them to get Jaguares reintergration stronger, with more key players on board, and have success drive success.
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