Jake hoping that Man City boss can Pep up the Bulls

Deflated Bulls coach Jake White believes he can learn some wisdom from Manchester City boss Pep Guardiola, who is himself seeking answers to a poor run of form and trying to find explanations as to why his champion side is faltering.

The deflated White was speaking after the Bulls had contrived a 20-17 defeat to a Sharks side that spent the 80 minutes fighting a rearguard action because they were bullied at the set pieces.

White’s team had a platter of opportunities to win the game but their game-drivers did not appear to know what to do with the front-foot ball flowing their way. Towards the end of the game, the Bulls went so far as to abandon their bread-and-butter option of kicking penalties to the corner in favour of long-range kicks at goal (that were missed by Johan Goosen).

The Bulls have lost three games in a row — to Saracens, Northampton, and the Sharks. In the last two games, in particular, the Bulls dominated everything but the scoreboard. White said he has started questioning himself.

“The thing that's a concern for me is that I wonder if I'm missing something,” the dejected coach said.

“I have been listening to Pep’s comments with interest — how long he's coached for and what he's done, and for him to admit that sometimes he feels as though it's got to be him. It is not a case of the players not trying and I don't believe the players have become bad, but I feel like we are swimming against the current all the time.

“I'm not sure whether or not I'm getting from them what I thought I would be getting from them this season.”

White suspects that poor option-taking is a significant part of the problem.

“We get into situations where the players manage things differently to how I would like them to manage it. I suppose that's why it's me; I have to find a way to get them to manage the game and take options that I want them to take because I believe they are good enough to take those options. It must not be because I'm forcing them to make the call.”

White mentioned a case where Embrose Papier had a two-man overlap outside him but hung onto the ball, was tackled, and a golden opportunity was lost.

On the other side of the coin, he highlighted the simplistic beauty of the try scored by Cobus Wiese. The line-out ball was taken strongly through the phases before the big flank powered over the line.

“When we are ’on’, we are great but then we revert to making the same old mistakes. That is the frustration.” White said.

"It is annoying because, for three weeks in a row, we have had situations where we could put the opposition away.

“Against the Sharks, we dominated every single part of the game and never won it. That is hugely frustrating. When it's on, it looks fantastic; then it's the little things: we kick when we should run, we run when we should kick; we get penalty advantage, and we give the ball back. I don't understand if we are quite in sync,” he added.

The Bulls remain in third place on the URC log with 25 points but are bottom of their pool in the Champions Cup. Their next game is away to Castres in mid-January in a Champions Cup fixture.

“I'm never going to say it is panic stations; we are top of the SA Conference and played five of our seven games away from home, so there's a lot of upturn that will come in the new year,” White said.

“I'm going to use these two weeks to do a recap and a reboot of where we are. I don't want to just look at the negatives; I have to look at where we are, what we can do, where we can grow.” | Independent Media Sport