Pretoria - It is rare that Victor Matfield is not familiar with the statistics regarding his team’s opposition, but such has been the focus of the Bulls to remain on the straight and narrow that they have taken little or no heed of the Lions’ six-match winning streak.
Not that the Bulls have lost respect for the Lions but the obsessive nature of stand-in captain Matfield in getting things right and making sure that the team leave for their tour abroad on a winning note, has been a great distraction this week.
However, Matfield is not brushing off the Lions as their whipping boys especially in light of their last gasp win over the Bulls three weeks ago.
The Lions can never be taken lightly and with the Johannesburg-based side proving that they can rumble with the best the competition has to throw at them, Matfield has rallied his troops telling them to man up or die a slow and painful Super Rugby death.
“I didn’t really know about that (the Lions winning streak) but it is nice for them. We are focusing on ourselves though. They are a great side playing fantastic rugby and they played well overseas. They are a team with a lot of confidence and they are winning the close games.
“We know that it won’t be easy but we’ve had a great week of preparation; we are up for it, we are playing at Loftus and it is a very important game,” Matfield said at yesterday’s team announcement.
And everything will start upfront for the Bulls as they have named probably their strongest tight five so far in the competition with in-form Springbok prop Trevor Nyakane starting ahead of Dean Greyling at loosehead to form a formidable scrum with fellow Springboks Adriaan Strauss and Marcel van der Merwe.
Greyling, who struggled in the scrums last week against the Stormers, has been left out of the team after sustaining a knee injury on Wednesday in a car accident that involved two other Bulls props, Hencus van Wyk and Basil Short. The trio sustained minor injuries and Greyling along with Van Wyk should be available to travel with the Bulls to New Zealand in 10 days’ time.
Bulls coach Frans Ludeke had to dig deep into his stocks to get a replacement prop with Tuks Varsity Cup star Andrew Beerwinkel getting his first call-up to the Super Rugby team and he will be in line to make his debut if utilised.
“The scrums can be the decider. It had a huge impact last weekend as well. Set-pieces are always the cornerstone of any team’s success and we are well aware of that.
“We take pride in our scrum and last Saturday we came back well in the scrums even though we didn’t start off well. We also take responsibility for what went wrong in the scrums and we are committed to sorting that out. If we want to be successful (tomorrow) the scrum needs to function and have a stable platform on attack.
“In the previous contest we had against the Lions it was a great contest because there was no team that dominated that area.
“That is the picture we are looking for this weekend as well,” said Ludeke.
The Bulls are close to having their best side on the field tomorrow with the elevation of Springbok Arno Botha at No8 and Lappies Labuschagne at open side flank.
There is also the return of Springbok centre Jan Serfontein to the starting line-up in place of Burger Odendaal who drops to the bench with Ludeke confident that Serfontein will make it onto the field after pulling out twice at the eleventh hour, including last weekend’s game against the Stormers.
Pretoria News