A terrible season for the Vodacom Bulls will be made worse on Sunday when Toulouse end any Champions Cup aspirations the Pretoria-based side may have had, writes MARK KEOHANE.
The Bulls will go into Sunday’s Champions Cup last-16 playoff on the back of eight successive defeats in all competitions, which has put their hopes of finishing in the Vodacom United Rugby Championship top eight in jeopardy.
It has been a big fall for the side that in 2021 looked like South Africa’s best chance of winning a cross-continental club tournament. By contrast, a star-studded Toulouse sit comfortably on top of the French Top 14 table and are unbeaten at home this season.
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In his TimesLIVE column, Keohane predicts that Toulouse will kick the Bulls out of the Champions Cup, adding that it is difficult to make sense of where things have gone wrong for Jake White’s charges.
“The Bulls play against Toulouse, who are currently leading the Top 14 and have all their French international players available, including the inspirational French scrumhalf and captain Antoine Dupont, who this week was named the Six Nations player of the tournament,” he writes.
“This is a Bulls team that a year ago was considered the most dominant in South Africa, having won two successive Currie Cup titles on their way to making it to the first ever URC final, which was won by the Stormers.
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“Something is seriously wrong because the group of players is too good to have lost their last eight matches in all competitions.
“It isn’t about inexperience, and I don’t subscribe to the view that Marcell Coetzee was a one-man band for the Bulls. Coetzee is an exceptional leader and player, but he alone was not the reason for the Bulls dominance and his departure can’t be the reason for their dramatic fall.
“You look at the touring squad, with names like Morne Steyn, Kurt-Lee Arendse, Cornal Hendricks, Canan Moodie and Harold Vorster among the backs and Elrigh Louw, Cyle Brink, Johann Grobbelaar, Marco van Staden, Ruan Nortje and Bismarck du Plessis among the forwards and I, for one, can’t make sense of their dismal returns.”
Picks: @mark_keohane and Zels predict @BlueBullsRugby‘s woes will continue when they take on Toulouse in the Champions Cup. pic.twitter.com/NUmokffLyj
— SA Rugby magazine (@SARugbymag) March 30, 2023
Photo: Samuel Shivambu/BackpagePix