Following the Vodacom Bulls' 33-46 loss to Bordeaux-Bègles on Saturday, head coach Johan Ackermann expressed significant frustration with the team's inconsistency and "elementary errors," stating that he was “soul-searching” for solutions.
Ackermann lamented the team's tendency to look "so good at moments, and then we look average, which resulted in them leaking easy tries after scoring brilliant ones.
He pinpointed “elementary errors” like losing a kick-off, knocking the ball on, or failing to secure breakdowns as core issues that have a high cost at this level of competition.
“Two offloads on any other day, Harold Vorster gets the ball away to Reinhardt Ludwig, and we score a brilliant try. Then Embrose Papier will get the ball away to Canan Moodie, and he’s that far off catching it, but Maxime Luca catches it, and they go all the way to the other side of the field and score.”
Ill-discipline and key errors, including two yellow cards in the second half that allowed Bordeaux to score 24 unanswered points, killed the Bulls' momentum after they had led 33-22 at halftime.
“We started the second half poorly again, and our discipline really cost us, too many penalties, the yellow cards, it all put us on the back foot.”
“We let it slip through our fingers because of a lack of discipline and individual errors,” Ackermann said. Our defence must sharpen up. There’s a lot of hard work ahead.”
“That’s the frustrating part. We are there and then not there.”
The Bulls pack had moments of dominance, especially in the scrum, but critical lineout losses and turnovers allowed the defending champions’ slick backs to strike. Ackermann admitted the French side hurt them with their clinical finishing and superior tactical kicking.
“We look so good at moments, and then we look average. Sometimes it is an individual mistake, and sometimes it is a system mistake. And it’s not consistent. It’s quality players who make the mistake, and that’s the thing. You saw in the past that they didn’t make those mistakes.”
“If you can score tries but you keep leaking tries, you’re not going to win. That’s the frustrating part. The inconsistency in all our areas is challenging at the moment.”
“I’m proud of the character and the fighting spirit. But it simply wasn’t good enough after 80 minutes.”