– Cape Town The Bulls should have little difficulty defeating the Glasgow Warriors in Saturday’s United Rugby Championship (URC) match (8.35pm kick-off).
The Pretoria side has won their first three matches of the season, after losing five of their first six contests last season and reaching the championship match in an unbelievable second half.
Jake White’s squad defeated the Lions (away), Edinburgh, and Connacht, and scored four tries to earn two bonus points.
In contrast, Glasgow have lost two of their three contests, falling to Benetton 33-11 on the road, Cardiff 52-24 in Scotland, and the Ospreys 32-17 in Wales last weekend.
This victory over Cardiff was their lone victory in their last seven URC games, which included a 76-14 loss to Leinster in the Dublin quarterfinals of last season.
A further aspect in the visitors’ favor is the Bulls’ 29-17 victory over Glasgow at Loftus Versfeld in April of last year.
However, White’s squad has not been flawless this season. They probably should have lost the Edinburgh match, since the Scottish team dominated the majority of the contest, and they would have won if Henry Immelman had converted a late penalty.
In their debut encounter against the Lions, they were obviously riddled with errors, and they tried with regular center Wandisile Simelane at fullback with varying degrees of success.
And then last week against Connacht, they conceded three yellow cards (to Marco van Staden, Johan Goosen, and Jan-Hendrik Wessels) and are rated 15th in the URC in the discipline category, having conceded 42 penalties (the second-most) and seven scrum offences (fifth-most).
While a result of the loss of defence coach Joey Mongalo to the Sharks, their defense has also been subpar as they embrace a new system under White’s direction. They are ranked second-last in successful tackles and fifth-worst in turnovers lost with 31.
“This was one of the topics we recently discussed in the locker room… After the Connacht match, White remarked on the team’s lack of discipline, “It’s pointless to speak about it; we need to take action and learn from our mistakes.”
“And it cannot be led only by the (coaching) personnel. It must be driven from within by the players. Now, the captain (Marcell Coetzee) has informed them that we will not merely discuss these matters; we will take action.
“And the players and the group will be the driving force behind this discipline. We are making things more difficult for ourselves, as you cannot compete against these teams with 14 guys for even 10 minutes. To do so for thirty minutes is unreasonable.”
Despite their terrible run of form in the URC, Glasgow have a decent record at their Scotstoun Stadium, having lost only once there last season — against Leinster by a score of 31-15 in October.
They defeated the Sharks, the Lions, the Dragons, Munster, Edinburgh, the Ospreys, Benetton, and Zebre, and have been bolstered by the return from injuries of lock Lewis Bean, loose forward Matt Fagerson, and former Lions prop Nathan McBeth.
However, they will be missing captain and wing Kyle Steyn (hamstring) and loose forward Jack Dempsey (rib), as well as longer-term injured players Allan Dell (calf), Huw Jones (back), Ally Miller (back), and Rory Darge (ankle).
However, they have a number of South Africans in their roster, including former Bulls lock Sintu Manjezi, former Stormers prop Oli Kebble, and former Cheetahs lock JP du Preez.
Therefore, the Bulls must avoid faltering on Saturday’s matchup.