Blue Bulls coach Nollis Marais is holding on to that old adage of “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” ahead of his team’s first home game of the Currie Cup against Griquas on Friday night.
In fact, Marais will be hoping that his team can improve on their near perfect start to the season when they annihilated the Free State Cheetahs last weekend by replicating and improving on that performance at Loftus Versfeld.
Marais has backed the same starting team with the only change coming on the bench where Baby Bok Dayan van der Westhuizen comes in place of Nqoba Mxoli. “We are looking for a bit of consistency, I believe that will be good for us against Griquas. It is only the second time we are playing most of these guys together, so it is better to keep the starting XV together,” Marais said yesterday.
While the Bulls certainly surprised the Cheetahs with the way in which they played in their 57-19 win, Marais believes that his team have somewhat lost the element of surprise while raising the expectations of their supporters. “The expectation is going to be high now because nobody expected us to play the kind of rugby we played against the Cheetahs.
“Everybody was unsure about what we were going to do but there is no hiding now. I don’t think there will be a lot of surprises. They (Griquas) know what we do. There is a lot of expectation from the people suddenly but we know what we have to do. We must remain level-headed and make sure we play a good game (tomorrow) night”.
The fact that the Bulls had been written off prior to the start of the season has seemingly worked in their favour and captain Lappies Labuschagne says that the only pressure is coming from within the team to play good rugby and improve on a weekly basis.
With only a handful of experienced players, the Bulls are taking on the Currie Cup campaign with a relatively young side but one that is littered with youngsters that have shown individual brilliance at age group level.
Labuschagne believes that his side must, therefore, focus on what worked for them against the Cheetahs last week.
“The win in Bloemfontein was the perfect start to the season for us. Again, this week, we must focus on what works for us and play good rugby.
“I think as a team we have put pressure on ourselves to get the best out of each other. That has helped us grow and gel as a team and we have come together as a team especially after that preseason tour to Japan. We want to get better every day, not just for ourselves as individuals, but also for the guy next to you,” Labuschagne concluded.
The Star