White hails 'comprehensive' Bulls victory

03/03/2024 06:44

Jake White says that while the Vodacom Bulls will savour their sensational victory over the DHL Stormers, the emphasis is still on hunting trophies. DYLAN JACK reports.

The Vodacom Bulls snapped a seven-game slump to the DHL Stormers with a thrilling 40-22 win at a packed Loftus Versfeld on Saturday night.

It was the first time the Bulls have beaten the Stormers in the Vodacom URC, with the hosts clocking up four tries to put the cherry on top with a bonus point.

Reacting to the win, White started by sharing the story of former American tennis star Vitas Gerulaitis, who delivered one of the sport’s famous lines when he broke a 17-game losing streak to rival Jimmy Connors.

“When he eventually won the 18th time, they asked him what he thinks and he said, ‘nobody beats Vitas Gerulaitis 18 times in a row’,” White recalled.

“We will enjoy this. Sometimes the road is longer than it is wide. It’s taken a long road for us, but it was comprehensive today. Against a great defensive side, we scored four tries and had one disallowed. Defensively we kept them out.”

White explained how, in containing the Stormers when the game was tight at 19-15 in the early stages of the second half, the Bulls showcased their growth since last season.

“A year or two ago, they would have scored in those plays they had on the tryline,” White said. “We will enjoy this as a team. As I said this week, when we started this project, we did really well early on with a young group. We were always going to get better.

“Right at the end of the game, I doubted the call to put so many players on so early. I thought maybe I shot myself in the foot, there. But those are lessons I learn. The gains you get from putting those boys on for that time, giving them the experience of winning in front of 50,000 people is immeasurable.

“It starts to sink in that the team is getting better and better. We had no Elrigh Louw or Cameron Hanekom, just two examples of guys who would have been in our mix, but that creates so much more competition in our group. Now everyone wants to be part of something that is as nice as tonight.

“It was probably the best we’ve played against them in all the fixtures together. For 28 minutes, they were nowhere, they looked like another team. They didn’t look like a champion team.”

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The Bulls temporarily moved to the top of the table, level on 40 points with Glasgow Warriors, but White promised that he won’t let his team start getting overconfident.

“I don’t think we are there yet. I am a lot happier with what happened tonight. We could have quite easily lost that game. It was 19-15 and they got three chances just after half time. They could have gone ahead and we would be playing catch up.

“This doesn’t mean we’ve won anything. We’ve won a game and it’s a pool game. We are happy to stay ahead of them, but we’ve won nothing. We aren’t going to get ahead of ourselves. You won’t see things on social media about us being the best team that’s ever played rugby.”

Photo: Nokwanda Zondi/BackpagePix

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