Jake White heaps praise on his players after dominant win over the Sharks

Bulls director of rugby Jake White was full of praise for his team after they outmuscled and outthought the Sharks to beat them 49-28 in the first Super Fan encounter in front of an empty Loftus on Saturday night.

The Bulls, who got out of the blocks with furious pace, led 35-7 at the halftime break and scored seven tries in the match compared to four by the Sharks who looked to be still be in lockdown mode.

Looking back at his dominant team’s performance, White said they played with high tempo and were accurate on the attack as they finished most of the chances they created, especially in the first half.

“I am very happy for a lot of reasons. We had a chance to play rugby again, to look at both our squads. We didn’t have any injuries and I thought that the way we started the match was very clinical and accurate,” said White after the first professional rugby match played in SA in over six months.

“We try to play in a different way and I thought the tempo was good and we accurately used some of the chances that we created. At one point in time, we didn’t let them get into our own 22 which was also very good from a defensive point of view.”

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White was also impressed with the execution of set pieces by his team which was another area where they dominated the Sharks.

“I thought for the first 40 minutes we were outstanding but we let them score right at the death with 14 men on the field. The other things that I am chuffed about is that in the second half, youngsters that came on thought it was going to be easy but they got a wake-up call because they had to scramble.

“I said to them after the match, 'welcome to senior rugby now.'  A guy like Jan-Hendrik Wessels has the ball turned over a couple of times, but last year he was playing schoolboy rugby at Grey College. The scrum was fantastic and it’s obviously a massive part of the Bulls DNA.”

Kurt-Lee Arendse and David Kriel scored two tries each for the Bulls with Schalk Erasmus, Stedman Gans and Travis Ismaiel getting one each as they showed their dominance.

With the boot, veteran flyhalf Morne Steyn managed five successful kicks and Chris Smith put away two.

For the Sharks, their tries were scored by Grant Williams, Marius Louw, Dan Jooste and Jaden Hendrickse, with Curwin Bosch and Jordan Chait converting two each.

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