URC – “It Was An Ugly But Pleasing Win” – Jake White

 

Vodacom Bulls director of rugby Jake White said the match against Benetton was extremely tough and although the 17-15 win was ugly it was also pleasing that the Bulls could pull it through.

"Sometimes you need a little bit of hope and you need a little bit of that kind of win because it just changes the mood of the team going into the next match.

"It was clear that it was very tough, the Bulls didn't dominate much of the game, sometimes you've got to win ugly. They did not allow us to play much. They are a really good defensive team. They have a lot of internationals in their team."

"It was very pleasing because we were staring down the barrel for most of that game and then found a way to win. When you can find a way to win in a game like that, you can only be proud of the players."

"Tonight, we found another way of winning a game. And don't underestimate, we scored two trials with one disallowed and they didn't score a trie. There is a lot more positives that we can take out. There's defensively how strong we were, attacking-wise, how many opportunities we created with a different style of game that we had to play. Especially, as I said, with a flyhalf who's not seasoned in that role."

"That will just make you stronger and stronger and stronger. Because it just means, one of the things I said when I joined the Bulls is, we know what our DNA is. We know what our supporters want.
We know what people expect from the Bulls. And that's never going to change. But we've got to find different ways to play the game."

"Tonight we found another way to play the game. And that means that the players will take a lot of confidence because they themselves will know that we can't always rely on our running game and probably going to have to find another way to roll up our sleeves."