Bullish Jake White fires warning shot at Stormers

Jake White says the outcome of the north-south derby will hinge on the contest between the Bulls’ unstructured attack and the Stormers’ structured defence when they clash in Cape Town this weekend.

Despite his team sitting on a six-match losing streak against John Dobson’s Stormers at Cape Town Stadium, White is adamant that the current Bulls squad has all the makings to end their winless drought against their arch rivals in the Mother City in what will be their first encounter since last season’s URC quarter-final.

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“We will compete hard there, but the statistics actually show that the Stormers have an efficient lineout. They may not be as good there as before, but statistically they still stack up well against other teams,” he told reporters in a Bulls conference on Wednesday.

“I wouldn’t say it’s an area we can exploit, but it’s an area where we can put pressure on them,” the Bulls boss explained.

“[But] because we have guys like Willie le Roux, Kurt-Lee Arendse, Canan Moodie, Johan Goosen and Embrose Papier, having the ball in broken play is also a strong point that we don’t want to move away from.

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“We don’t want to kick the ball out and create structured play when our play from unstructured play is precisely one of the areas where we excel,” White concluded.

Meanwhile, Stormers scrumhalf Paul de Wet revealed that they know exactly what to expect from the Springbok-laden Bulls team, especially in terms of attacking plays.

“You can’t get too emotional about this match. Everyone here really wants this win, but we know they will be heavily motivated after those tough encounters we had with them.

“But we are focusing on ourselves and to be better with every game. We have our goals that we want to reach.

“A physical and strong Bulls side awaits us, but they also have this new type of game that they play. It will be a big game, and it’s exactly what we expect.”

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STORMERS VERSUS BULLS