Down 38-0 after 55 minutes, Loftus Versfeld resembled a bloodbath for Western Province in their first Currie Cup game of the season against the Blue Bulls.
WP had conceded five tries, and were a shambles. The Bulls broke through flimsy tackles too easily, and Province’s defensive organisation was non-existent.
And even though John Dobson’s team were winning the scrum battle, it didn’t mean that the WP pack were dominant as the likes of behemoths such as Jannes Kirsten, Marvin Orie and Jason Jenkins cut a swathe through the opposition.
Those figures will be back to torment Province in Saturday’s Currie Cup semi-final at the same venue (6pm kickoff), but can WP stop them this time? The problem for the Cape side is that the Bulls are even stronger upfront this time around.
Lizo Gqoboka and Jacobie Adriaanse have sorted out the scrum problems, while RG Snyman is a 2.06m monster who is going to try and intimidate a WP pack that has lacked a hard edge this season.
Springbok hooker Bongi Mbonambi has been tasked with changing that, but he cannot do it alone. The 1.97m, 111kg blindside flank Kirsten is the man that has to be stopped if Province are to stand any chance of causing an upset, and that is where Rynhardt Elstadt will have to revive memories of the 2011 Super Rugby season, when he dominated Bakkies Botha in Pretoria.
Elstadt is at No 6 this weekend, and he will have the eager Kobus van Dyk to help him bring down the heavyweight Bulls loose trio of Kirsten, Roelof Smit and No 8 Arno Botha.
Province have the attacking personnel to hurt the Bulls. Nizaam Carr is getting some of his form back after returning from a troublesome shoulder problem, and the WP No 8 would want to produce his best game of 2016 to make a late bid for Springbok selection for the November tour.
If Carr can receive front-foot ball, he can cause havoc on the fast Loftus pitch, and that is also how Cheslin Kolbe, Huw Jones and Juan de Jongh will come into the game.
Jones has been the undoubted star for Province, and was voted the Players’ Player of the Year at the union’s awards evening last week. The Scottish international – the competition’s joint leading try-scorer on seven, with the Bulls flyer Jamba Ulengo also among the group of five at the top – has the quick feet and speed to make it a long evening for Bulls centres Burger Odendaal and Dries Swanepoel, who are powerful runners, but may be seriously tested defensively by Jones and De Jongh.
Dobson has spoken a lot this week about how WP need to handle the Bulls’ kicking game, and particularly the expected up-and-unders on the back-three. But ultimately, it is Province’s defence that will come under most scrutiny, as the Cape outfit conceded the most tries (29) out of the top five teams.
“It’s got better. Obviously Ellis Park (against the Lions) was a fiasco… It’s funny how rugby – it was one element of our defence. It was the restart, our kickoff defence, and rugby is such a fast-evolving game… It was the source of 25 points (conceded). That was more of a coaching detail error than the players not being able to defend,” the coach said.
“There is so much detail and width against a team like the Lions, and that knocked our confidence a lot. But since then, our defence has got better, there’s a lot more belief in it.
“Now it feels like we are playing for something positive, for the final – it’s not a fear of failure. It’s a different mindset now. It’s more about handling what they’re going to do than changing how we are going to play. We’ve prepped for a lot of contestable kicks, stopping their momentum and that sort of thing.”
Western Province:15 Cheslin Kolbe, 14 Werner Kok, 13 Juan de Jongh, 12 Huw Jones, 11 Leolin Zas, 10 Robert du Preez, 9 Dewaldt Duvenage, 8 Nizaam Carr, 7 Kobus van Dyk, 6 Rynhardt Elstadt, 5 Chris van Zyl (captain), 4 Jan de Klerk, 3 Wilco Louw, 2 Bongi Mbonambi, 1 JC Janse van Rensburg.
Bench:16 Mike Willemse, 17 Alistair Vermaak, 18 JP Smith, 19 JD Schickerling, 20 Stefan Willemse, 21 Jano Vermaak, 22 Johnny Kotze, 23 Scott van Breda.
Blue Bulls:15 Ulrich Beyers, 14 Travis Ismaiel, 13 Dries Swanepoel, 12 Burger Odendaal, 11 Jamba Ulengo, 10 Tian Schoeman, 9 Rudy Paige, 8 Arno Botha (captain), 7 Jannes Kirsten, 6 Roelof Smit, 5 RG Snyman, 4 Marvin Orie, 3 Jacobie Adriaanse, 2 Jaco Visagie, 1 Lizo Gqoboka.
Bench:16 Bandise Maku, 17 Martin Dreyer, 18 Pierre Schoeman, 19 Jason Jenkins, 20 Hanro Liebenberg, 21 Ivan van Zyl, 22 Joshua Stander, 23 Bjorn Basson/Nic de Jager.
Referee: Marius van der Westhuizen. Kickoff:6pm.