Bulls rebuilding after Crusaders’ shocking defeat – Rugby news
Only thing constant in life is change however, in any sport and for any team with good winning combination the word change is somewhat alien. The general philosophy is simple just do not change the winning combination as it will result in all sort of issues.
However, it is relatively easy to change a team that has recently loss as it gives the decision makers the extra room to manoeuvre players around to bring fort the favourable result.
However, things get really tricky when a team is coming from a massive defeat and are not sure for what they want to do.
In such situations, teams often start to ring up all sort of changes, which are characteristic of getting panic, but at the same time, they consider the changes as routine and denied the panic stated that resulted in creating an absurd situation. Same is
in the case of current Super Rugby champions Blue Bulls who have been hammered severely by the Crusaders during last weekend in which Bulls even fail to put any point on the board.
Frans Ludeke, Bulls coach has categorically denied that his team has not hit the panic button and will stick to the original team to take on the Reds Challenge.
Nevertheless, the question now is that how a coach can stick to a combination that has made 27% handling errors, missed 13% of their tackles, and combined the different aspects of game together team has exhibited their poorest on field show in years. And
the simple answer is that no coach will do and for this matter, Bulls are also no exception.
Bulls have already ringed few changes for their weekend encounter with the Super XV leaders Reds. Scrum Half Fourie du Preez has been dropped from the starting line-up as the Bulls have decided to switch the Francois Hougaard from Winger to Scrum Half. Gerhard
van den Heever who substituted Bjorn Basson as Winger during the game against the Crusader will start as the Winger.
In other changes, Flanker Deon Stegmann has been moved to bench and Prop Werner Kruger will start at Flank alongside Prop Dean Greyling and Chiliboy Ralepelle. Flip van der Merwe and Jaco Pretorius would miss the Brisbane encounter as they sustained injuries
during last weekend match. Centre Jaco Pretorius has been replaced by the Stephan Dippenaar.
Other changes include the return of Du Preez and Akona Ndungane at the bench. For Bulls, this is a very important game if they want to stay head to head with the leaders. Current champions fail to register a win against the Reds last year as the Reds overcome
their challenge 19 – 12.
Additionally, Bulls had some serious work to do get their confidence back and enter the game in the positive mindset.
Bulls with the changes have to work hard to develop the team and its communication system to pose some sort of threat to the Reds at Suncorp, particularly after their last week shocking defeat at Timaru. Blue Bulls will be looking forward for the win to
again put their campaign for defending the super rugby title back on track.
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