Johannesburg - The Bulls are hoping to avoid a third consecutive defeat in Friday’s final United Rugby Championship tour game against Benetton in Treviso, but what is it about playing overseas that makes things so difficult?
The Pretoria side look like two different teams when playing at Loftus Versfeld and across South Africa, compared to Europe.
Last season, they lost three out of six games up north – against Leinster, Connacht and Edinburgh – while beating Cardiff, Zebre and then Leinster in the famous semi-final triumph.
On the current trip, they’ve gone down to Glasgow and Munster, and will hope to emerge victorious at the Stadio Monigo on Friday (6.30pm SA time kickoff).
“It’s difficult to pinpoint, because every venue brings its own challenges. On a 4G pitch, that brings up a lot of game-speed, whereas we in South Africa are more accustomed to a little slower game, than what the European teams do here on their pitches,” Bulls technical advisor John-William Meyer said from Treviso this week.
“They are used to those conditions when it’s wet – on the long turf – and on the 4G pitches as well. They are accustomed to playing a very fast game on those pitches – and it’s something we haven’t (adapted) to as yet.
“But according to the stats of our last game against Munster, we are slowly getting there – compared to last year on tour. It’s a normal pitch (in Treviso), similar conditions to what we have in South Africa. If we take on the heat – training this week was completely different to what we had last week. This is almost the same heat and humidity as in South Africa.
“But in saying that, these okes (Benetton) are currently playing the second-fastest game, aside from Leinster, in the competition.”
But coach Jake White will also be looking for greater physicality from his forwards and more efficiency in the lineouts and at the breakdowns, while Meyer pointed out that the kicking game needed considerable improvement.
Halfbacks Johan Goosen and Embrose Papier battled to win territory or launch contestable kicks in the wind and rain in Limerick, and with Goosen unlikely to feature this week due to concussion, it may be an opportunity for White to call on veteran Morné Steyn to call the shots when he names his team on Thursday.
Chris Smith is the next in line, having been a consistent performer over the last few years, but he won’t have fond memories of his last visit to the Stadio Monigo, where he struggled in the heavy Rainbow Cup final defeat to Benetton.
“They will definitely bring a kicking-game challenge for us – something in which we haven’t been hitting the sweet spot as of late… They will try to expose the kick-space behind us,” Meyer said.
“But other than that, they are very physical… they are very good on defence. Even their younger guys knocked back some pretty big guys, Test players, against Edinburgh. And they bring a lot of variation on attack – I see they’ve got a sneaky couple of moves in the 22, which we haven’t seen from other teams yet.
“Against Munster, our one-on-one tackles – although we missed a few – no system is foolproof in that. But I thought our one-on-one tackles were spot-on. Although we didn’t get many dominant hits, we made most of our tackles… we had an 88 percent (tackle completion rate).
“The thing that puts us under pressure is a little bit of our kicking game – kicking inaccurately at times, which puts our defensive structure under pressure. It’s when the kicks went too long, or the execution of the kicking play didn’t go according to plan.”
IOL Sport