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'The odds are stacked in their favour' -Bulls-Leinster a 'Test match'
By Jan De Koning
Leinster assistant coach Robin McBryde admits his team has been taken ‘outside their comfort zone’ by having to play away from home – having lost their last two United Rugby Championship semifinals at home.
On Saturday they invade Loftus Versfeld to tackle an ambitious Bulls team in the last-four encounter of 204.
He expects the home team to lift their game and intensity of the game to Test match level.
“Maybe it is good that we come to a tough place against an inform team,” he said in the build-up this week.
“You can react positively to having to do things the hard way.
“Hopefully we will get a good reaction out of the players on Saturday.”
The hosts have not lost a home semifinal in over 10 years, but are battling with several high-profile injuries to their Springbok contingent – with Marcell Coetzee, Canan Moodie and Kurt-Lee Arendse all ruled out of the tie.
Despite this, the Bulls still possess significant attacking prowess, ranking as the top try scorers this campaign, averaging 4.72 tries per game.
This relentless try-scoring power has been driven by their ruthlessness in the opposition’s 22, also ranking top for the season in points per visit to the opposition 22 with 3.17.
McBryde said he feels the Bulls are favourites, given their proud home record and having had more preparation time.
“The odds are stacked in their favour,” he said.
Leinster will be hoping to shake off their struggles in South Africa this season, having just one win from three matches on the road against Southern Hemisphere sides this season.
They will take confidence from the fact that they overcame the Bulls convincingly 47-14 at the RDS Arena in Round 13, with their challenge set to be replicating this performance in the high-altitude conditions of Pretoria.
However, they are also coming off another disappointing knock-out loss – a 22-31 reverse to Stade Toulousain in the Champions Cup Final last month.
McBryde said the South African teams have raised the bar and in the top six teams anyone can beat anyone else on the day.
“The quarterfinals were tight game, with not a lot of room for error.
“It is a quality competition and the Bulls are a pedigree team with international experience.
“It is going to be a Test match on Saturday – in terms of the level of intensity,” McBryde added.
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Latest Comments
Steve Borthwick appointment was misguided based on two flawed premises.
1. An overblown sense of the quality of the premiership rugby. The gap between the Premiership and Test rugby is enormous
2. England needed an English coach who understood English Rugby and it's traditional strengths.
SB won the premiership and was an England forward and did a great job with the Japanese forwards but neither of those qualify you as a tier 1 test manager.
Maybe Felix Jones and Aled Walter's departures are down to the fact that SB is a details man, which work at club level but at test level you need the manager to manage and let the coaches get on and do what they are employed for.
SB criticism of players is straight out of Eddie Jones playbook but his loyalty to keeping out of form players borne out of his perceived sense of betrayal as a player.
In all it doesn't stack up as the qualities needed to be a modern Test coach /Manager
Go to commentsBut still Australians. Only Australia can help itself seems to be the key message.
Blaming Kiwis is deflecting from the actual problem.
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