Vodacom Bulls director of rugby Jake White singled out their lack of speed at the back as the major reason for the upset the Hollywoodbets Sharks pulled off by beating the Bulls 29-19 at Loftus on Saturday evening.
"We now realise that without the guys that played last week, like Marcell Coetzee and Cameron, we struggled. Once the Sharks were able to use their pace, we were up against it."
"We missed Cameron’s speed as a loose forward today, he could have closed holes before they opened us up as wide as they did."
"They selected a really quick backline. If you look at it man for man, that is their strength. They have sevens rugby players at the back and once they made line breaks, we couldn’t catch them."
"Grant Williams, Yaw Penxe and Jurenzo Julius are really quick players. Even Lukhanyo Am, who played centre, has played on the wing in the past."
"They scored long-range tries and the reason for that is they outpaced us and there is no substitute for speed. It just shows you they have genuine speed. We were exposed 50 yards out by pure pace. It’s something we have to look at, selection-wise."
"The frustrating thing is, throughout the season we’ve generally been able to recover from linebreaks and tackles from behind. We have to work on stopping teams from getting past us."
"Generally what happened against other teams is that we had the pace to either scramble and catch them from behind. That’s the frustrating thing because once they got behind us from a line break, we’ve generally been good enough to catch them from behind, and we didn’t do it today."
"If you remember, one time we got put away and Devon got caught by Yaw Penxe from the side. That generally hasn’t happened before."
"Obviously, we’ll have a look and see how we’re going to be able to stop teams from making line breaks and scoring against us."