Springbok hooker Schalk Brits has called for cool heads against the Crusaders as the Bulls look for a remedy to their chronic white-line fever.
Brits, who last played against the Crusaders a decade ago, was champing at the bit for another run against the nine-time champions.
“They are at the top, they’re a fantastic side, they have an unbelievable record and I want to play against them,” Brits said.
“I don’t want to miss games, I want to see what they do. How do you learn? Unfortunately a lot of times people don’t learn from failure, but the mentality I’ve learned at Saracens is that failure will happen.
“It is about how much you can learn from it and take what they do.”
Brits was among four reinforcements for the clash after he served a four-match ban for his role in the punch up with Sharks hooker Akker van der Merwe.
The Bulls go into the clash as the underdogs despite home-ground advantage as they look to consolidate their lead at the top of the South African conference.
The Pretoria-based franchise has been battling to find continuity in their results and have often been the architects of some of their defeats.
“It is not a lack of effort, the guys try too hard and shift the last pass too early when the offload is not on,” Brits said.
“The longer a team plays together, the fewer errors creep in on defence and attack.
“Hopefully with time and this weekend there will be calmness that we will score three, five or seven points.
“But the key is that we don’t need to score now, but it can be in two phases or five phases later.”
Brits said it was understandable that the Bulls would produce inconsistent performances considering the short time they had been together before the start of their campaign.
Bulls coach Pote Human and his support team were only confirmed in December 2018 leaving them with little room to manoeuvre before the start of the Super Rugby campaign.
“We aren’t doing bad for a group that was thrown together in January with new coaches and a new group of players,” Brits said.
“We are still making mistakes, but there is intent and we have soft moments on the field which we need to remove.”
Brits said the Crusaders provided the golden standard of a team culture that needs to be developed to produce good results consistently.
“I last played against the Crusaders I 2009 they were a great team back then and they have a great team now. It is just different faces,” Brits said.
“The interesting thing is that the culture has remained the same and that is the beautiful thing about the Crusaders.
“I want to know from a team culture point of view what they do. They perform on the field and they don’t necessarily win every year, but they are there and thereabouts.”
@ockertde
Pretoria News
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