When it was announced that Lood de Jager was to captain the side SB went on the attack and stated that it was a stupid decision. All kinds of doom was expressed by the orcs and I must admit - I also hesitated about them.
Yet last week the Bulls beat the demotivated and poor Stormers by a huge margin and it was clear that De Jager had a top game himself and led the team by example and his captaincy was superb. SB and the orcs went quiet and one his to wonder why.
Problem is that they could not find fault with the team performance and they effectively credited only Specman, Pollard and Vermeulen for their good performances. That gave a rather twisted indication of what really happened. However, the fact is that even though the Bulls ended up tops in the overall log - it is too early in the competition to make any real evaluation of the Bulls performances.
The next few rounds will be more indicative of how things will go for the Bulls this year. They play the following games in the next few rounds:-
Round 2 - Jaguares (away)
Round 3 - Lions (away)
Round 4 - Sharks (at home)
Round 5 - Bye
Round 6 - Chiefs (at home)
If they win at least two of the 4 games mentioned they would do well. I think we must wait to see what happens on Saturday - my own guess is -
* they might beat the Jaguares if they repeat their performance against the Stormers;
* the game against the Lions is a toss up with the Lions probably being the favourites;
* the game against the Sharks is a toss-up; and
* I have a sneaky suspicion that they will beat the Chiefs.
They have tough opposition in the next few rounds and a lot will become clear in those rounds.
