Vodacom Bulls Director of Rugby Jake White was brutal in his assessment of their last-minute 21-20 win over Leinster in a Round 13 United Rugby Championship clash at Loftus at the weekend.
With time up on the clock the Bulls secured yet another scrum penalty which David Kriel converted to secure the win.
“Credit to them, because that’s part of the Bulls priding themselves on their set piece. 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."
"What price do you put on a team that says: forget it, we are going to get a scrum penalty here."
However, White lamented the multitude of mistakes, especially in the first half.
"I’m not going to condone red cards, yellow cards and stupidity. When we get to the knockout stages, we will lose those games. We need to be smarter."
"We can’t be stupid and think that we are going to get to the back end 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 it 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. The maul try and the yellow card. There is a lot of effort in that. You know how tired you get when you have maul, scrum, maul, scrum."
"I’m proud of the way they fought, and the bench came on and made an impact. But I’m also not sweeping anything under the table."