Coach Jake White says he’s “not sweeping anything under the table” after the Vodacom Bulls’ 21-20 win against Leinster at Loftus.
The Bulls trailed the understrength visitors 17-6 after 58 minutes before two tries from lineout mauls and a string of scrum penalties from a substitutes-boosted pack saw them hit the front.
Flyhalf Ross Byrne’s 78th-minute penalty looked to have preserved Leinster’s unbeaten record this season, but yet another scrum penalty – in the 85th minute – allowed centre David Kriel to kick the Bulls to victory.
“Credit to them, because that’s part of the Bulls priding themselves on their set piece,” White said. “Today, let’s be fair: our set piece was outstanding. Yes, it was against a Leinster team that didn’t have all their internationals, but still, that is a great effort for us.
“We needed a scrum penalty in the last play of the game, and they needed to put the ball in and out, and kick the ball out. And after two resets, we managed to get the penalty on the third scrum.
“I told them I just want to see you desperate to get a result for 80 minutes. We had to win to stay in the top four, and even with 14 men, we found a way to win.”
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White said Kriel had been “gold” for the Bulls.
“I’m happy for him,” he added. “As a goal-kicker, those kind of things can add scars if you miss it. But we were better tonight than needing a late penalty to win.”
The Bulls boss bemoaned his team’s indiscipline, particularly from winger Sebastian de Klerk, whose 75th-minute red card for taking out Leinster winger Andrew Osborne in the air almost cost them the game.
“I’m not going to condone red cards, yellow cards, stupidity … Because when we get to the knockout stages, we will lose those games,” White said.
“We need to be more smart. We can’t be stupid and think that we are going to get to the backend of the competition and win it if we don’t make better decisions in those situations.
“It’s stupid things, stupid – unbelievably stupid. New Zealanders talk about game smartness, and I think that is the bottom line.
“You’ve got to understand where you are on the field, what the score is, what your job is …
“That smartness is also something a player has to learn. You can’t coach him every single thing about his role.
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“I just said to the players now that we’ve won games like this one where we could’ve lost, and lost games that we should’ve won. And the reality is that it’s just because of our own actions. Four times we’ve given penalties away for playing the nine – three of those were yellow cards.
“Today, we play the guy in the air: red card. You take everything away from the effort the other guys put in to get back in the game.”
Photo: Shaun Roy/Sportsfile via Getty Images
