Jake White’s decision to send a second-string line-up to Northampton to get thumped in the Champions Cup means there will be no escape for his preferred starting XV in Pretoria this weekend.
The United Rugby Championship is back after a fortnight of Champions Cup and Challenge Cup, and the Munster outing will define so much of the Bulls' ambitions of hosting a play-off in June.
Outside Leinster, there isn’t a more difficult overseas team the Bulls could have faced. Munster are tough, know how to win away from home and they know how to win in South Africa.
They are also the defending URC champions, having shown all their class and trench mentality to win their last five matches on the road in the 2022/23 season, to end the Stormers' unbeaten streak in the league at Cape Town’s DHL Stadium, to beat Leinster in Dublin in the semifinal and then to fly to Cape Town to dethrone the Stormers in the final.
Munster won the Grand Final 19-14 in front of a URC record crowd of 56,300. It was a stunning result in the context of the season and giant Springbok lock RG Snyman produced a sensational last 50 minutes to be pivotal to Munster’s win.
Snyman’s time at Munster has been one of freakish injuries and long absences because of injury, but when he has played, he has owned the line-out and been huge in his all-round contribution.
Snyman is back at his old stamping ground Loftus for the first team since leaving the Bulls. It seems a lifetime ago that he played the last of his 49 matches for the Bulls, and if Munster were to upset the Bulls, be assured Snyman would have had something to do with a Munster win.
The Bulls are in third place in the league, with 45 points, just two points ahead of fourth-placed Munster. The Stormers, in fifth, lead a bunch of teams in the high 30s.
The Bulls, at home, would have banked four league points when they did their season’s projections. White would have backed his best team to be good enough to win every home game. Munster may feel that getting anything out of the game would be a bonus, but to think Munster are playing for a losing bonus point is to misread the mentality of those men wearing red.
It is going to be a brutal showdown and the pressure will be all on the Bulls because this is the match they targeted as the priority over a Champions Cup quarterfinal.
Defeat for the Bulls could make for a very anxious last month of league play. They simply must win, but they are going to have to play to their potential to get the points.
Munster, in the league win and Grand Final triumph against the Stormers in Cape Town, proved they are a team that doesn’t fade. They stayed in the fight, and they did in their only visit ever to Loftus, back in 2022. The Bulls, at one stage, were leading by 20 points but a resurgent Munster, aided by a red card in the 69th minute to Bulls hooker Bismarck du Plessis, nearly won it in the final minute.
The Bulls won 29-24 but they were the ones looking like they had never played at altitude in those final few minutes.
Munster are a team that commands respect because of their mentality.
For me, it is the most significant match of the round.
The Sharks are away to Glasgow and have sent a second-string team. I would be surprised if they get within 20 points of Glasgow, who are second in the league.
The Stormers play the strongest of the Welsh teams, the Ospreys, and like the Bulls they know the importance of winning at home.
The Lions, their season somewhere between awesome and awful, host the league’s leaders Leinster.
It is not improbable that the Lions could win, because Leinster are unlikely to play their strongest side. If you like to have a punt on a game, stay away from this one.
Equally, the showdown at Loftus.
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