Cape Town - The Bulls began their trip back to South Africa yesterday, but now coach Jake White is waiting to see whether wing David Kriel will be ready for Saturday’s United Rugby Championship (URC) final against the Stormers in Cape Town.
Kriel had to leave the field in the first half of Friday night’s enthralling 27-26 triumph over Leinster in Dublin after taking a blow to his head.
The Bulls No 14 tried to tackle Leinster centre Robbie Henshaw and made contact with the Irish star’s hip, and stayed down for a while.
He eventually took up his position again, but was then taken off for a head injury assessment (HIA), and didn’t return.
Kurt-Lee Arendse came on at fullback, with youngster Canan Moodie moving to his usual right wing spot, and it worked out well as the Bulls back-three still managed to deal with Ulster’s kicking barrage, while Arendse and Moodie also put pressure on the home side’s defence with ball-in-hand.
“He got a bang, and I don’t think he passed his HIA. So, hopefully he will be Okay. That’s the one nice thing about playing on a Friday – you get more time to prepare for the other game,” White said after the match.
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“It’s actually worked in our favour, because if we have to go back to Cape Town, we don’t have to fly straight out tomorrow night. And if we stay here, we’ve got another day to get someone across, or get our injured players ready for Saturday.”
For the rest of the starting line-up, White is likely to stick to his guns and reward the players that ran out at the RDS Arena in Dublin, but he will have some big calls to make on the bench.
He went with Bismark du Plessis’ experience over dynamic youngster Jan-Hendrik Wessels as the back-up hooker, but Wessels has been impressive with his ball-carrying, particular in the second half of recent matches.
WJ Steenkamp was also chosen ahead of Reinhardt Ludwig as the loose-forward cover in Dublin, while loosehead prop Simphiwe Matanzima got the nod in place of Dylan Smith – while Lizo Gqoboka missed the quarter-final and semifinal following the passing of his father.
Experienced centre Lionel Mapoe made his return from injury in Saturday’s Currie Cup clash against the Cheetahs in Bloemfontein, where he played alongside Stedman Gans.
Bulls Currie Cup coach Gert Smal said he was not yet sure if he was going to get any URC players back for this weekend’s semi-final against Griquas at Loftus Versfeld.
“They are just getting themselves organised on that side to get back to South Africa as quickly as they can. I was quite excited to see the younger players play, so at least we know where they are, and what we can help them with and to become better players for the future,” Smal said after the Bulls lost 35-5 at the Free State Stadium.
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“Sometimes you have to go through these types of games to really see how you can improve – firstly as an individual, and as a team. I don’t want to use that as an excuse (in the Currie Cup). The URC is the main competition at the moment, and the Bulls did extremely well on Friday night – and we congratulate them on that.
“We would like to see those kind of aspirations carry over to the young players as well. You need some maybe with the younger players, and hopefully we can fix a couple of things during the course of the week, and be a much better team going into the semis.”
@AshfakMohamed