The Vodacom Bulls await news on injured winger Stravino Jacobs, with assistant coach Chris Rossouw ruing missed scoring opportunities in their defeat to Scarlets on Friday.
Jacobs dotted down for the Bulls towards the end of the first half in the Vodacom United Rugby Championship clash in Wales, but suffered a suspected broken leg in the 72nd minute of the match.
The visitors were able to take that momentum into the second period as scores from Cyle Brink and Francois Klopper made it a three-point game, before Scarlets winger Johnny McNicholl scored the decisive try at the death to see the hosts come away with a 37-28 victory at Parc y Scarlets Stadium.
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Speaking in a media conference on Saturday, Rossouw told reporters: “Unfortunately, it looks like Stravino has a serious leg injury. We will try to find out the extent of that – it could be that he has a fracture in his lower limb, but we have to get the final update on that.
“We will get a good feeling of where the injury updates are [later].”
Rossouw also believes that the Bulls’ second-half dominance may actually have worked against them, after they chose not to go for a late three-pointer and had to settle for a brave defeat.
“It was a game of two halves. They say hindsight is an exact science… The dominant sense in that second half maybe got the better of us, instead of going for poles there,” he said.
“We also have this principle where, if you dominate and you are up by one or two points, you normally go for the corner to apply more pressure instead of letting them into your half if you kick that penalty – then they are on your tryline again.
“Maybe that got the better of us. At that stage, we were going very well, and the guys just thought if they could convert that into a try, that would give us even more momentum.”
Rossouw added: “But if we look back now, we could’ve taken those three points and got scoreboard pressure, and then rebuild from there.
“Unfortunately we couldn’t convert that play, that maul… If you look back, it’s maybe something we could’ve done differently, but there were games where we did exactly the same and we scored. I thought maybe the guys went on that thought process.
“We conceded too many points in the first half. I thought the guys were unbelievable in the second half to come back from 27-7 down, and almost taking it away from them.”
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