Jake White says “unbelievable” performances from Elrigh Louw and Ruan Nortje for the Vodacom Bulls are proving that the sky’s the limit for his young side.
This, after Louw and Nortje, aged 21 and 22, respectively, starred in the Bulls’ nine-try demolition of Scarlets at Loftus Versfeld in the Vodacom United Rugby Championship on Friday.
Louw has been a powerhouse at No 8 for the men in blue this season, while lock Nortje has shown an impressive work ethic, on and off the ball.
“It’s unbelievable,” said White. “Week in and week out, [Louw and Nortje] simply deliver. I keep telling everyone how young these two men are still. They’ve got a great future ahead of them.
“It’s wonderful that we’ve got such young guys playing good rugby. But it helps having experience around them and I believe we’ve got the blend right.”
The Bulls barely hung on for a 29-24 win over Munster last Saturday, so White was also pleased with his team’s tireless efforts against Scarlets.
“I wanted to see some interplay between those groups and I don’t think you could get better than what we did in this game,” the Bulls boss said. “We had props offloading to each other and an opensider throwing a 40-metre pass to the wing. Then you know things are coming together and even our scrum was very strong.”
He added: “We actually talked about it in the change room during the break. Last week, we led 26-3 and almost let it slip. The players said we were not going to get caught out like that again.
“We weren’t going to give away penalties and cards and they showed they learnt from that. That learning ability is very encouraging.”
