Vodacom Bulls captain Duane Vermeulen has heaped praise on coach Jake White for assembling a potentially dominant squad at Loftus.

The Bulls are on the verge of winning the maiden Vodacom Super Rugby Unlocked title and their first piece of silverware since 2010.

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Speaking at their team announcement press briefing on Thursday, Vermeulen said it’s special to see the Bulls back at the top of the pecking order in South African rugby, especially after the union’s decade long drought in terms of silverware.

‘For us, we plan as much and as best as we can,’ Vermeulen explained. ‘The most important thing for us is to play good rugby and to win.

‘This will probably be the first and last Super Rugby Unlocked, so it’s something new and something different. There’ll be a trophy and that will be nice and positive because I think the last time the Bulls won anything was 10 years ago.’

The captain, though, added that this current success could be the stepping stone to far greater things for the Bulls under the tutelage of White.

‘We look ahead, it [success] is about putting the right squad together and I think so far Jake’s got the right group together. From there, it’s just about getting the fundamentals right.

‘After this weekend, we can close this chapter, but there are many more chapters to go, our book’s not finished yet. There’s still a lot of work to be done and a lot to look forward to. So it is nice to win, but next week we go straight into a new competition. There isn’t really time to celebrate, you’ve just got to put it behind you and move onto the next one.’

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