The Bulls got the win in Galway — and that’s the headline that counts when the Vodacom United Rugby Championship’s (URC) log is tallied, and the play-off seedings are settled.
Winning away from home in this competition is gold dust, no matter how you get it. The Bulls’ 28–27 victory over Connacht will look like a precious four league points in June, 2026.
But this wasn’t the statement performance of a pedigreed outfit. It was an escape — and one that came courtesy of Connacht’s missed kicks, not Pretoria’s precision.
Still, winning ugly overseas is an art.
The influence of current Springboks Canan Moodie and Wilco Louw was telling. Moodie continues to show the maturity and finishing class that makes him a Test regular in the Rugby Championship, while Louw’s power and scrummaging composure have added serious heft to the Bulls’ pack.
Long-term gain
Bulls coach Johan Ackermann rotated cleverly across the two-week Irish tour, giving his full squad game time — a long-term gain that should pay off when the attrition of the season bites.
No South African franchise can match this squad’s depth; only Leinster, across the entire league, boast a player roster that runs as deep.
And yet, the numbers don’t lie: 18 tries conceded in four matches. For a team with the Bulls’ firepower, that’s a red flag.
New coach Ackermann built his reputation turning the Lions from pretenders to contenders, playing exhilarating rugby but underpinned by structure and steel, and two successive Super Rugby finals.
Ackermann’s teams attacked with ambition but defended with pride. That’s what makes the Bulls’ generosity on defence so surprising. This side should be meaner, nastier, and more accountable when they don’t have the ball.
Ackermann inherited a squad that his predecessor Jake White made consistently competitive — three finals in four years — but White’s teams were often accused of lacking the killer instinct.
Fixing the leak
They scored plenty of tries but leaked too many five-pointers. Ackermann’s challenge is to fix that leak.
The blueprint for champions, from Super Rugby and the Premiership to the Top 14, has never been an all-out attack. It’s balance, discipline, and defence that travels — especially on wet, windy nights in Belfast or Galway.
There’s no shame in losing in Belfast, where the Bulls went down 28–7. But there’s sin in surrendering for 10 minutes, and Ackermann knows it. The new era in Pretoria must be defined by a harder edge.
With double World Cup-winning Springboks flyhalf Handré Pollard back home — reunited with a pack boasting Wilco Louw, Jan-Hendrik Wessels, Gerhard Steenekamp, Ruan Nortjé, Marcel Coetzee, Elrigh Louw, Cameron Hanekom and Marco van Staden, and Boks utility back Moodie, and the evergreen Boks Test centurion Willie le Roux — there’s enough experience and class here to finish in the top four after 18 rounds.
But to finally lift the URC trophy, the Bulls must defend like champions, not entertainers.
They’ll take the one-point win — as any World Cup-winning Springbok will tell you, one more point is all that matters. But right now, this was a get-out-of-jail card, and not a declaration of intent.
Plenty of work ahead
Ackermann summed it up best post-match: “There is work to be done in Pretoria.”
Plenty of it.
There is also work to be done for Frans Steyn’s Cheetahs in Bloemfontein, as they prepare for the EPCR Challenge Cup.
The Cheetahs will again be based in Amsterdam for their home games, and there’s potential they will play Georgia’s Black Lion in the competition.
In Bloemfontein, on Friday night, the Georgians got the luck, with Cheetahs winger Cohen Jasper missing a conversion attempt to win the game.
Both teams scored six tries as Black Lion won 39-38.
The two teams will play again on October 26 to determine the winner of the fifth annual Toyota Challenge Cup.
Black Lion received R250,000 for Friday night’s win, and whoever wins next Sunday will also get R250,000.
The first Toyota Challenge was hosted in 2021 and competing teams have been Diables from Barcelona, the Sharks, Baia Mare from Romania, Emerging Ireland, USA ‘A’, neighbouring Griffons, and Perth-based Western Force.
The Cheetahs start their EPCR campaign on December 6.
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