Staff Reporter.
Vodacom Bulls coach Jake White praised his side’s “desire to win” during the final minutes of their 16-13 triumph against Munster on Saturday.
Bulls became the first South African team to win a Vodacom URC match at Thomond Park while completing a clean sweep of the four Irish provinces this season.
“It’s massive and one of the biggest wins we’ve had as a group,” White said. “More importantly, the way we played … I knew it was going to be an 80-minute slog and one of those games that goes to the wire. We really wanted to win this game, so from a momentum, confidence and log point of view, we are very happy.”
Replacement flyhalf Keagan Johannes regained the lead for the Bulls in the 73rd minute, before both fullback Devon Williams and Johannes kicked directly into touch to give Munster lineouts inside the visitors’ half.
With the clock in the red, the Bulls had to defend phase after phase, before finally forcing a Munster handling error.
“I just said to those players [Williams and Johannes], can’t you do me a favour and just kick the ball in-field,” said White. I mean, jeez …
“But then we defended … it was probably the best defensive set we’ve had for a long time. We had to keep them out and by not giving a penalty away, showing discipline.
“In the past we would have maybe made one or two mistakes there and let ourselves down. We need to defend like that in the next month and a half against some really good teams.”
While the Bulls did well to disrupt Munster’s lineout, they were denied the chance to dominate at scrum time for the final half an hour when the match went to uncontested scrums after the hosts were unable to provide a front-row replacement.
“I wonder what the shape of the game would have looked like had the scrum stayed competitive,” White said.
“Let’s be fair, [Munster tighthead prop] Oli Jager went off reasonably early [14th minute] and he’s obviously a very good scrummager. We got the rub of the green for the time that he was off, because they then had a new prop [Stephen Archer] coming on straight into a game much sooner than he would have expected.
“In some ways, uncontested scrums counted against us, but let’s be fair, it also meant every time we defended well and turned the ball over from a Munster knock-on, then we were guaranteed to get the ball from that scrum as well. So it works both ways.”
The Bulls now turn their attention to Glasgow, who beat them in last season’s URC final at Loftus Versfeld.
The Bok Women showed good variety in the 48-26 victory in which they scored eight tries to four against Spain in Alicante on Saturday.