The Bulls have announced their team to take on the Reds in Brisbane on Saturday morning, making five changes to the team that lost to the Crusaders last weekend. Starting in the pack, Chiliboy Ralapelle gets a start ahead of Gary Botha and Derick Kuun comes into the team for Deon Steggman.
In the backline, the biggest change of them all is the benching of Fourie du Preez for the energetic Francois Hougaard at scrumhalf. Stefan Dippenaar is brought in to play outside Wynand Olivier in the place of Jaco Pretorius and Gerhard van den Heever takes over at wing for Hougaard.
The Bulls face a Reds team that will be full of confidence after their wins in South Africa.
Bulls: 15 Zane Kirchner, 14 Gerhard van den Heever, 13 Stephan Dippenaar, 12 Wynand Olivier, 11 Bjorn Basson, 10 Morné Steyn, 9 Francois Hougaard, 8 Pierre Spies, 7 Dewald Potgieter, 6 Derick Kuün, 5 Victor Matfield, 4 Bakkies Botha, 3 Werner Kruger, 2 Chiliboy Ralepelle, 1 Dean Greyling
Substitutes: 16 Gary Botha, 17 Rossouw de Klerk, 18 Danie Rossouw, 19 Deon Stegmann, 20 Fourie du Preez, 21 Francois Brummer, 22 Akona Ndungane
Player management looks to be lost on the Bulls management !
Will interesting if McCaw returns for the Crusaders this weekend and I wonder if he returns, if it will be for Kieran Read !
@Hertford Highlander (Comment 1) :
Surely it will be for that Matt Todd player..
Although I am very impressed with how he has gone so far. Good backup to have, he will shine in the next two years!
@Hertford Highlander (Comment 1) : There is a lot of things lost in the Bulls camp
I wonder when last Fourie was relegated to the bench?
I would have thought du Preez would need as much game time as possible before the WC since he’s already been promised a starting position with the Boks.
Why koen,do they want to lose.
@Honey Badger (Comment 5) : Can it get any worse after last weeks white wash?
@Viking (Comment 3) : @Viking (Comment 3) :
At least his right boot will get a weekend off !
@Richard Ferguson (Comment 2) :
I think they will be reluctant to rest Todd !
@Hertford Highlander (Comment 8) :
Why do you say that?
Surely they would want to make sure McCaw is match fit and gets some game time..
This is great. Maby it will give him a wakeup call. They must replace Wynand with Watermeyer also.
@Richard Ferguson (Comment 9) :
I don’t think so ….. I think they will be keen to keep him in as much cotton wool as possible.
But my original point was simply that I think Matt Todd is playing well enough to get a start on merit !
@Bloubloubul (Comment 10) : Watermeyer is better than all 3 of them imo.
@Bloubloubul (Comment 10) : I don’t think there is a big problem with the Bulls team as such….I think the problem is Atitude and an outdated gameplan.
@Jarson (AddicteD) (Comment 12) : I second that
@Hertford Highlander (Comment 11) : I read somewhere that McCaw will play off the bench, or was that last weekend?
The Bulls have dropped the wrong half back.
@KSA Shark © (Comment 16) : Absolutely agree, however, Im not surprised. They have realised the half backs arent working, so they have dropped the player for whom they have adequate backup. Steyn may be cr@p, but would you want to play Brummer against Cooper?
@KSA Shark © (Comment 16) : And who would you put in Steyn’s place? Jaco vdw? Brummer? Would those changes strengthen the team? I would say not.
@war1 (Comment 18) : Snap… more or less.
@Pablo Dinero (Comment 17) :
@war1 (Comment 18) :
You guys make sense.. Never even thought of that!
@Pablo Dinero (Comment 17) : @war1 (Comment 18) : Catch 22…You are screwed if you do and you are screwed if you don’t. Maybe Howgawrd can make some magic happen for them.
@Viking (Comment 21) :
Hougaard is a great scrummie..
Maybe this will book his seat to New Zealand…
Desperate calls hehehe
@Viking (Comment 6) : Maybe 30-0
@Viking (Comment 21) : The problem is, if Steyn is struggling now, hes going to struggle more without Du Preez, who lets be honest is the brains behind the organisation. Hougaard is good, but he doesnt think for Morne like Fourie does. In my opinion Steyn is the rugby equivalent of a ventriloquists dummy. How well he plays depends on whose hand he has up his a$$.
@Richard Ferguson (Comment 22) : Hougie has a lot of talent and he is still gona go far. I would like to see him specialize in the position that he wants to play going forward instead of jumping between 9 and 11. But watch out for a guy like Sarel. The guy is playing some really good ruggas of late and would really like to see him in a proper outfit so that can test his abilities.
@Pablo Dinero (Comment 25) :
I really like the way you put it, but jokes aside you are 100% correct. Steyn seemed very ordinary last year without Fourie “thinking” for him. When your forwards give you go forward ball and a halfback parter like fourie, any FH can look good. Not se easy when its the other way arround.
I have the perfect solution for the Bulls to turn their team into a winning outfit again: buy the Stormers or Sharks.
@Viking (Comment 27) : Lambie is the future. Take him to the World Cup. Bring Grant or Butch as backup for superstitious purposes (we have only ever won the world cup with Maritzburg college 10′s)
@King Shark (Comment 28) : Its not working so well for the Lions…
@Pablo Dinero (Comment 30) : Hahaha!
@Pablo Dinero (Comment 30) : You mean the MTN Mercenaries
@Viking (Comment 32) : At least MTN is easier to say than Auto and General…
@King Shark (Comment 33) : If the Lions carry on the way they are the only company that will sponsor them is Tampax
@Pokkel (Comment 13) : Totaly agree with you on the gameplan, it is so predictable.
I see there are a lot of big mouth Sharks supporters out there again…..the Sharks won 1 game against the lowest placed team after losing 3 in a row…..let’s not get too ‘windgat’ too soon boys.
@Pokkel (Comment 36) : Agreed, but how much did the Stormers and Bulls beat them by?
@Pokkel (Comment 36) : And despite having lost twice more, they sit only 4 points adrift of the Stormers… with the Stormers still needing to travel.
@Pablo Dinero (Comment 34) :
LOL!
@Pokkel (Comment 36) : I would love to see some symmetry in the rematch between the Sharks and Stormers: let Grant miss that match due to injury and let Lambie be back. You’ll be surprised by the margin I bet.
@King Shark (Comment 40) : Also let the Stormers have returned from a roadtrip including 4 countries in 4 weeks.
@King Shark (Comment 40) : @Pablo Dinero (Comment 41) : I agree with all you are saying…….just don’t get too windgat…it tends to come back and bite you!
@Pokkel (Comment 36) :
Stormers’ opponents’ point ratio: 101/25 (bye excluded)
Sharks’ opponents’ win ratio: 123/25 (pre-bye)
That means that on average the sharks faced better opposition thus far.
@Pablo Dinero (Comment 41) : At the moment it looks like this in comparison:
Sharks lost 1 at home – Stormers Lost 1 at home
Sharks 0 byes – Stormers 1 bye
Sharks got 12 log points on tour – Stormers still need to tour
The way I look at it, the Sharks are looking pretty nice where they are sitting at the moment.
@Pokkel (Comment 42) : Oh no, I agree. Im not trying to blow hot air up the sharks behinds. My comments on this thread were more closely related to how over-rated I think Morne Steyn is and how poor the Lions have been after all their preseason hype. I still respect the Stormers and think they have a great team. As do the Bulls. The later just suffer from the same problem the Boks do…a coach who wants to win on the back of his predecessor with no novel ideas of his own. It carried him for two years, but sooner or later, you have to have a plan of your own.
@King Shark (Comment 43) : No arguments…..but we don’t want to be like the Stormers supporters and count our trophies before they….eh…’hatch’
@Pokkel (Comment 46) : Too true. I won’t be recorking my champagne ever again!! 2007 still haunts me
@King Shark (Comment 43) : Nice figure F*%$ing dude
@Viking (Comment 48) :
Well I am busy with stats this module…
In the wake of the Saders’ drubbing of those blou oke’s van Pretoria af:
Q: What’s the difference between a samoosa and the Blue Bulls?
A: A samoosa’s got three points…
@Pablo Dinero (Comment 45) : Couldn’t agree with you more. It’s rugby by numbers over at Loftus, with all the imagination and flair of a brick. They are fat blue cats resting on their laurels and getting pounded for it as a result. This attitude of “we can like to be the Bulls and hit you amongst the eyes” – bliksem the opposition into submission rather than play actual rugby – is getting them nowhere, and you can’t really blame the players (even though some of them apparently come from the shallow end of the gene pool where brain cells are concerned!)
I swear they have a conveyor belt in the Loftus cellar on which new players are placed and which quickly hammers out any worrying signs of initiative and talent, creating automatons with no ability for lateral thought. It’s the brawns over brains approach.
Hougaard is a good player, even if Loui Fish swears he is a girl. But he won’t stay one if he stays at Loftus, that’s for sure. He’ll become as boring and bland as the rest of his Blue compatriots. Ditto for Zane. Sad for Bulls fans. Even sadder for SA rugby.
@SharonvanWyk (Comment 50) :
I like that
‘Sad for Bulls fans. Even sadder for SA rugby’
Geez you nearly had me there with the sad face
You don’t give a sh*t about the Bulls
@Pokkel (Comment 53) : did u guys and galls see the new blogger that crept in here…..@bloubloubul also a newcastle lad,and as blue as can be….
@franshark (Comment 54) : The face rings a bell!
@Pokkel (Comment 55) : must be an alarm bell
@Pokkel (Comment 55) : works with me, needless to say.. Very quiet this week.. 0 and all u know
Flippit! It’s a Newcastle Tsunami!!
@SharonvanWyk (Comment 50) :
Lol, good one.
@Ice (Comment 58) : Run for the hills and shut down the nuclear reactors!
@Pokkel (Comment 53) : True. I don’t.
But I most definitely care about South African rugby in general, and especially the Bokke. And even though those boys in blue don’t exactly do it for me, Big Vic and his compadres have done this country proud. 
@Ice (Comment 58) : :He’s a good guy just speek a lot of bull…:)
@franshark (Comment 62) :
You’ve got to admire him flying the blue flag in Newcastle!
@SharonvanWyk (Comment 63) : true, and have to agree hate the bulls but love SA teams. So I do smile when the bulls loose but hate to see the nz/aus counterparts giving any of our teams a hiding.
@franshark (Comment 64) : Which is why this SupeRugby set up is so twisted… I scream for other SA teams to lose against the men from the Antipodes so that the Sharks can prevail. It’s damaging my soul, I tell you!
@Bloubloubul (Comment 10) : infact 12 watermeyer and 13 hougaard could have been better
wings is hurdles and bjorn
i would have kept the half backs together
@sharks_lover (Comment 66) : Watermeyer and Dippenaar played from under 20 level together.I think it is time to integrate them fully in super rugby.
@Bloubloubul (Comment 67) : Didn’t they play together in the warm up game against EP Kings?
@Bloubloubul (Comment 67) : i know mate , but i just think watermeyer the strong bigger fella and hougaard the fast nimble creater would be a better combo
@Ben (Comment 68) : You got me there. Don’t remember. You could be right.
@sharks_lover (Comment 69) : I do beleave in players to be played out of there postions.
Bulls weakness =Loose forwards ,dewald is a poor blindside flank ,why they dont start with Rossouw is beyond me -drop stegman ,put dewald at 6 and dannie at 8 or 7
@Pablo Dinero (Comment 34) : wonderfull joke
@Bloubloubul (Comment 70) : Can’t remember but anyway the centres were poor on that day.
@Bloubloubul (Comment 70) : @Ben (Comment 74) : Or wait let me rephrase. Let’s be fair, the whole Bulls team were poor in that game!
@Bloubloubul (Comment 70) :
@Ben (Comment 68) :
Yip they did.
http://www.sharksworld.co.za/2011/01/30/bulls-humbled-by-fired-up-kings/
@KSA Shark © (Comment 76) : Thanks