Jake White bemoaned “moments of inexperience” but applauded the scrum after the Vodacom Bulls were beaten by the DHL Stormers in a thrilling derby in Cape Town on Friday night.
The Vodacom Bulls came from 13-3 down to draw level with the Stormers at half time, but conceded three successive tries in the second half to suffer a fourth straight loss to the Capetonians.
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While the Vodacom Bulls were able to field veterans such as Harold Vorster, Lionel Mapoe, Cornal Hendricks, Johan Goosen, Marco van Staden and Bismarck du Plessis in their matchday-23, White was left frustrated by the decision-making of the players around them.
“I think we just showed moments of inexperience,” the Bulls director of rugby said after the match. “That’s the only disappointing thing I can think of.
“There was a tap penalty on their line, where we’ve got five or six plays that we run, but we tap the ball and run and knock it on.
“Then I was making a substitution, and we got the timings wrong where there was one less defender on the far side when they ran the ball from the kick-off [for Suleiman Hartzenberg’s try], so I suppose that was inexperience in that there was a miscommunication.
“It was one of those games. We scored three tries to four, but we looked a little bit inexperienced with some of the actions that we had.”
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White said there were positives for the Vodacom Bulls to take from the match in how they pressured the Stormers defence and scrum.
“We were apparently the weakest scrum, but tonight we got three penalties against one of the best front rows in the world,” said White.
“I am not happy with the result, but to get three penalties in the scrums, from where we were two or three years ago, is unbelievable for me.
“And the fact that we give the ball to guys like Canan and Kurt-Lee is why we played like we did tonight. They will get better – they are still young. Canan is just 20 years old.”
