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Lions celebrate © Gallo Images Predict and WIN with 3G MobilePlay our 3G Mobile fantasy game and WINWin with our Player Of The Week competition Bulls need hearts of Lions by Johan Coetzee 07 March 2016, 17:14SuperWrap Week 2, 2016:
"Welcome to 'Whose Tryline Is It Anyway', the show where everything is made up and the points don’t matter. That’s right, the points are like the plot in a Leon Schuster movie."
That would undoubtedly have been the introduction to the post-match ceremony at Loftus on Saturday if Drew Carey was asked to host it. And he should have been.
In “Scenes from a hat” he would have pulled out an envelope that read “creative ways to avoid making a tackle” and then showed us a highlights package of man-of-the-match Bjorn Basson’s defensive efforts on the day.
Instead of a captain’s interview he would have asked Adriaan Strauss – the Bulls’ Wayne Brady – to do a bluesy musical number called “A Couple Of Soft Moments”.
I mean really, 42 unanswered points and then you just stop playing? All over them one moment and then flat on the ground getting trampled the next. Those were four of the softest tries ever conceded at Loftus.
Why can’t the Bulls play after the 50th minute (the same thing happened against the Stormers)? Did they neglect cardiovascular fitness work in the pre-season? Are they over-training during the week now? Is it that coach Nollis Marais just has the worst halftime speeches ever?
Someone like Carey at the post-match ceremony would have been quite fitting because that second half was a joke.
Oddly enough, they were talking about jokes over in Hamilton earlier that morning as well. But for a totally different reason.
Commentator Scotty “Sumo” Stevenson was so impressed with the Lions’ all-in offensive against the Chiefs that he gave us one of the quotes of the season. "This Lions side makes a mockery of the stereotypes that we apply to South African rugby," he enthused.
Sumo had it spot on.
The Lions had nothing South African about their play. No set-piece orientated, slow-the-game-down mind-set. No inside-channel only, head-down attacking. No mindless kick-and-charges. They beat the Kiwis at their own game.
I have to admit, I was just as excited about that result. I immediately took to twitter to explain the magnitude of the achievement to my handful of followers. Here is what I wrote:
Later that afternoon all I could say during the carnage at Loftus was: “Basson didn't even try to defend there. A proper attack will murder these Bulls”.
Well, it seems they were right all the time, I must be an idiot. I went back to the match-stats this morning to confirm my pre-conceived ideas, but all I found there was reality slapping me in the face.
It was time to be honest.
If I want to bemoan the Bulls’ lack of defence I have to concede that the Lions also let in four tries. More important, if I wanted to celebrate the Lions’ attacking stats, then I had to at least look at their blue neighbours’ too. Here is what I found:
Bulls stats v Rebels:
651 running metres
136 carries
26 defenders beaten
167 passes
The Bulls had out-Lioned the Lions.
That leaves me in a bit of a quandary. Why is it that after seeing the stats I still feel the Lions win was so much better than the Bulls’? Am I just biased?
No, I’m not. The Lions’ victory was so much more special because they kept on fighting right until the final whistle. They fought on Saturday just as they had fought last year when they won three of their four matches in Australasia.
The Lions are the darlings of South African rugby not because they play a more adventurous brand of rugby, but because they have the perfect mix of ambition and heart.
The Bulls have learned a lot from the Lions. Their general game plan is way more expansive than it’s been in decades. They have learned from their neighbours that there is no reason to limit yourself to percentage rugby because risk-free too often also means rewards-free.
But it shouldn’t stop there. If you want to re-create something, don’t just copy half of the recipe.
The Lions ended the 2015 Super Rugby season as the country’s most celebrated team. They’ve learned how to win and entertain at the same time and everybody loved them for it. Even their rivals, it seems.
Their wins came on the back of some back-breaking work on defence, though. None of their players featured in the top ten 'tries scored' list, nor were there any to be found in the clean breaks or ball carries categories. They did however have the tournament’s top tackler in Warren Whiteley and another defender, the aptly named Warwick Tecklenburg, in fourth.
Run for show, tackle for dough.
The Bulls’ biggest challenge this year will be to emulate that less-glorious half of the Lions’ magic formula. If they fail to do that, if their attitude on defence remains as lackadaisical as it is now, they will end their season as nothing more than just another failed experiment.
The next time they run out they have to make it “Welcome to ‘This Is MY Line’, the show where nothing is made up and the points matter more than anything.”
Last Saturday’s Bulls joke is no laughing matter for rugby in this country.
Right, let's get to some more juicy bits from the week.
Bok Barometer for week 2:
(The side is picked purely on the performances of the current week)
15. Warrick Gelant (Bulls), 14. Ruan Combrinck (Lions), 13. Francois Venter (Cheetahs), 12. William Small-Smith (Cheetahs), 11. Leolin Zas (Stormers), 10. Elton Jantjies (Lions), 9. Faf de Klerk (Lions), 8. Warren Whiteley (Lions), 7. Jannes Kirsten (Bulls), 6. Marcell Coetzee (Sharks), 5. Pieter-Steph du Toit (Stormers), 4. Eben Etzebeth (Stormers), 3. Maks van Dyk (Cheetahs), 2. Malcolm Marx (Lions), 1. Trevor Nyakane (Bulls).
Try of the week:
Again we had quite a few to choose from this week, with pretty five-pointers popping up everywhere. In the end we settled for the Jaguares’ Emiliano Boffelli putting his cat among the pigeons. (note: video can be viewed in DStv territories only)
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“Jorrie” of the week:
The “Jorrie” is an award we used to hand out regularly in this column to honour the worst kick of the week. To make up for neglecting it for a while we decided to give you two of the best howlers you’re likely to see this year.
First up is this attempt at goal by the Crusaders’ Richie Mo`unga. It’s so bad it is almost genius.
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Then there was this one from the Bulls game. We suspect that this may be a case of the coach’s “Julle moet gatskop vandag!” being misunderstood. Either that or we've found a crack in his kicking technique....
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Best of twitter:
