Jake White has gone all in on the Vodacom Bulls to beat the DHL Stormers in a repeat of last season’s Vodacom United Rugby Championship final, and the quality of that bet will be revealed at Cape Town Stadium on Friday night.
Both teams have enjoyed a solid start to the new URC season, both sitting on 34 points. The Bulls occupy second place ahead of the third-placed Stormers, due to the Pretoria side winning one more game than the Capetonians.
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Opposing head coaches, John Dobson and Jake White, have approached the challenge of balancing URC and Champions Cup commitments differently.
While Dobson has opted for consistency, fielding a similar side in both competitions, White placed a premium on this week’s URC final rematch at the expense of the Bulls’ Champions Cup campaign.
He rested a host of heavy hitters in the Champions Cup debut against Lyon, and again sent a second-string team to face the Exeter Chiefs. The Bulls held on for a 42-36 win against the visiting French in Pretoria but were hammered 44-14 by Chiefs at Sandy Park.
The wisdom of the decision to pull back his elite troops from the front-lines of Europe depends heavily on the result of this week’s clash against the Stormers. A victory will justify having put all his eggs in one basket and give the Bulls an edge in the South African conference; a loss will mean the Bulls surrendered a bonus point to Lyon and made a pointless trip to Exeter for no reward.
BY THE NUMBERS: Stormers vs Bulls
On this side of the result, White’s strategy has put the Bulls in a position to field a full-strength match-day squad against a Stormers team counting the injury cost of their travels – lock Salmaan Moerat not least among them.
When looking at the two lineups in the inaugural final, what made the Stormers’ success even more special is that nine of the starting XV were players of colour. In fact, the Stormers had the best record when it comes to transformation last season, which has carried through to this season as they fielded 11 players of colour in the starting group that tackled Dragons at Nelson Mandela Bay Stadium.
“The strength of Western Province and the Stormers is our cultural diversity, but when I heard the number, it really made me appreciate how much progress we have made, and how we have transformed just by way of understanding how we wanted to play, and then identified the players we believe most effectively suit this game plan,” said Dobson in his column before that match.
In this department, the Bulls have been somewhat lacking, despite their success under White. In the starting team that took on the Stormers in the final, only four were players of colour and none were forwards.
The former Springbok coach has overhauled the structures at Loftus Versfeld and quickly re-established their domestic dominance in 2020 and 2021.
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Among White’s memorable wins were back-to-back Currie Cup final triumphs over the Sharks in 2021, and then a brilliant semi-final upset of Irish giants and URC title-favourites Leinster in Dublin.
The Stormers beat the Bulls three times last season, so there is no questioning that White’s men will be eager for payback, while the hosts will be looking to extend their long unbeaten run in the Mother City.
Photo: Shaun Roy/BackpagePix
