Bulls head coach Johan Ackermann hailed his team’s grit in turning a 17-5 half-time deficit into a 19-17 victory in their first-ever win against Edinburgh in Scotland.
The Bulls beat Edinburgh on Friday night to secure back-to-back wins for the first time since the opening two rounds of the United Rugby Championship, three months ago. It followed a win against Pau in the Champions Cup in France, which ended their seven-match losing streak.
The Edinburgh win lifted the Bulls from 11th to ninth on the URC log, injecting confidence into their preparation for next weekend’s massive local derby against the Lions at Ellis Park.
‘A little more accurate’
Ackermann said his players had missed opportunities in the first half but didn’t allow themselves to be bogged down under the scoreboard pressure during the break. Instead, they remained calm and worked on what they needed to.
Also, the icy wind blew in their favour as they went on to dominate territory for large portions of the second half. Springboks Johan Grobbelaar and Marco van Staden scored tries while the Bulls kept Edinburgh scoreless, even while defending their slim lead for the last 10 minutes.
“We saw there were opportunities, and even more so if we got the stuff right that we wanted to,” Ackermann said.
“We said there are only two tries in it, and we can score tries if we get our structure right. So we said, let’s just be a little more accurate. They contested every breakdown, so we had to clean that up…
“Everything that we spoke about, the players executed in the second half. Credit to the players. There was no panic. There was a massive belief that we could turn it around.”
The Bulls’ gain is Edinburgh’s loss
The Bulls coach said he felt somewhat sorry for Edinburgh coach Sean Everitt, a man he admired, who wished to alleviate pressure after a 63-10 thrashing by Bath the week before. Edinburgh slipped from 10th to 11th on the log.
“It wasn’t pretty, but we’ll take it. The mood is really good and positive at the moment. But a lot of work still needs to be done. Again, it’s only another game that we got [and] there’s a lot of rugby left this season.”
He said a big work-on was finishing opportunities more regularly when the Bulls entered the opposition 22.
“When it counted, we got the points we needed. But in the future we have to be more clinical.”
