Jake White: 'You can’t play against an international team... with 14 men'

Bulls Director of Rugby Jake White highlighted the positives and negatives following his side’s 28-34 Challenge Cup quarterfinal loss to Edinburgh on Saturday.

The Bulls were slow to get out of the blocks in near-perfect conditions.

Edinburgh took full advantage of the visitors’ mistakes to race to a 14-point lead before David Kriel’s try brought the margin back to seven points.

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A yellow card to Zak Burger in the eighth minute didn’t help the Bulls’ cause, and they were reduced to 14 players at the start of the second half when Jannes Kirsten was sent to the sin bin in the 41st minute.

White lamented his side’s ill discipline. Despite his disappointment in the result, he is proud of the fight the Bulls showed when their backs were against the wall.

“You can’t play against an international team with the calibre of players they have with 14 men,” the Bulls’ Director of Rugby said.

“During that [14 player] period, we conceded 21 points. Once you are 7-24 down, it makes it very difficult.

“But I am still very proud. At 7-31, we could’ve quite easily have gone the other way.

“We’ve seen how a lot of teams at the back end of this competition have blown other teams away.

“And to literally get turned over in the last play of the game in the [opposition] 22 [metre area] is obviously something I’m really happy about.

“But I just stress that I’m obviously very disappointed because we came here with a group that I thought would be good enough to beat Edinburgh.”

The Bulls’ comeback started strongly through a penalty try in the 46th minute and a score by No.8 Cameron Hanekom in the 49th minute.

The fightback was much to thank the Bulls’ replacement bench, with the likes of Johan Goosen and Canan Moodie showing their class in a testing situation.

White praised his impact squad’s contributions, as well as the starters who remained on the pitch.

“Kurt-Lee [Arendse], Canan [Moodie] and Johan Goosen. Our attack is one of our strengths, and we’ve lacked a little bit of polish without those guys.

“To get Canan [Moodie] and [Johan] Goosen, and even Emmy [Embrose Papier] at the end, I didn’t give him a lot of [game] time, but he was a lot sharper.

“It’s nice to know that you’ve got a [strong] bench. But credit to the other players too.

“They got us back into the game after starting poorly.

“There were about four or five chances in their 22 metre area where we didn’t finish.

“We either had a crooked throw or lost the line-out, maybe got a delivery wrong and we double banked [obstructed] once when we set-up a nice maul.

“Everyone would learn and know that you can’t play in these knock-out games where you find yourself five metres from the try line three or four times and not come away with any points.”