FACING GIANTS

BULLS coach Jake White says his team will once again have to bat above their weight when they take on Leinster in the United Rugby Championship Grand Final on Saturday at Croke Park.

White and his manskappe have reached back-to-back URC finals after last year hosting and losing 21-16 to Glasgow Warriors at Loftus Versfeld.  In 2022, they travelled to Cape Town to tackle the Stormers who klapped them 18-13 in the title decider.

And Saturday will be the Bulls’ third shot at glory in four years with White saying his manne kyk’ie nog vas teen ou verlore nie.

According to White, his team are still building towards greatness and know they will be up against it against a Leinster team that is filled with world-class players like Springbok RG Snyman, All Black Jordie Barrett and Irish Kiwi-export James Lowe among others.

Of the threats that Leinster poses and how he admires the Irish club, the Bulls boss says: “They probably got more Irish international caps than we’ve got URC games under our belt and that’s the significant part.

“And I must say that Leinster are the benchmark of what I do [at the Bulls]. I can only praise them because there are a lot of teams that are trying to emulate what they have done and how they have gone about doing it.”  

Still, White wants his team to go out and prove they can’t be labelled as chokers when it comes to playing in URC finals and says: “I generally don’t believe that any coach ever talks about what happened 20 years ago when you lost in a playoff game.  

“This group of players have probably far exceeded the expectations of anybody in the last four years. And to play three finals, our average age of our team in the last four years has been the youngest of most teams in the competition.

“I am not for one minute saying that we are not not aware that we have [lost two] finals, but… we’ve batted above our weight for a long time.

“Hopefully, this game will be the one where we will learn from the two other opportunities we have had to win a competition like this.”