Bulls’ head coach Jake White hit back at the criticism of making 13 changes to his team’s starting line-up for Saturday’s Champions Cup quarter-final against Northampton Saints, bizarrely citing Liverpool’s 3-0 defeat to Atalanta on Thursday in his defence.
“There’s no way Jurgen Klopp picked that team on the basis that he wanted to lose at home,” said White, after the Liverpool manager made six changes for the Europa League quarter-final first leg, before their unbeaten home run came to a shock end at Anfield.
White’s own controversial selection was, according to the 2007 World Cup-winning coach, partly down to “medical advice” as the Bulls’ trip to England was sandwiched between last week’s last-16 win over Lyon in Pretoria and next week’s clash with the holders, Munster, in the United Rugby Championship.
As he detailed the experience of many of the 23 players chosen to face Northampton – “all these guys have started a URC game, or Champions Cup, or both” – White also said he was aiming to build a 50-man squad in which there was no A or B team.
“I’d like a win [over Northampton], first prize, and I’d like to create depth and competition for the jersey,” White said. “I learnt last year, I didn’t rotate the squad often enough and it came back to bite me.
“Northampton are top of the [Premiership] log, they’ve got strengths across the field, a really competent line-out, defensively they have some wonderful stats, and they score lots of points. They are definitely the form team in England. And they are one of five teams left in the tournament who have won it before, and the reason those teams have won it is because they have created depth over a long period of time.
“I’ve got medical advice that guys who have got bumps and bruises after the last travel [to Dublin two weeks ago] and the last massive game we had against Lyon, it would be a massive risk bringing them overseas. A big group of players would be at risk not to start at the weekend the chances of being able to be replace them would be impossible.
“Maybe there’s guys who haven’t played as much because other guys have been doing well, but this is a good team, it’s fresh, there’s no niggles, they’ve trained well, some have been rewarded, some have been rotated, and they want to do well.”
Bulls won away to Bristol Bears and Lyon with changed line-ups in the Champions Cup pool stage – and those matches are starting centre Henry Immelman’s only previous appearances this season.
But the obvious difference is the greater prestige of this quarter-final, amid the ongoing debate over South Africa’s addition to the Champions Cup last season, and the URC the season before.
White did not specify which players are injured, although co-captain Ruan Nortje pulled up with a hamstring problem before the Lyon win, and flanker Marco van Staden has a knee injury.
Willie le Roux, Kurt-Lee Arendse, Canan Moodie, Johan Goosen, Embrose Papier, co-captain Marcell Coetzee and Wilco Louw are the highest-profile starters from last week who have missed the trip north.
The 60-year-old White was asked about one of the younger players, the South Africa U20 lock Merwe Olivier who is set for only his second Bulls appearance from the bench, and the secret of Pretoria’s production line of locks.
“Meat for breakfast, meat for lunch, meat for dinner,” White said. “The genetics, the diet, the desire to want to play at the highest level.”