The Bulls are one win and 80 minutes away from glory in this year’s United Rugby Championship (URC), after their dazzling performance and unexpected 25-20 victory in Saturday’s semi-final against the Irish team, Leinster.

While the haters and opponents of the Bulls sometimes have a lot to say about what’s going on at Loftus Versfeld, Ruan Nortjé and his mates’ victory against their highly-rated Irish opponents – almost all of whom are experienced Test players – showed once again that most of this small talk doesn’t carry any weight.

Whatever happens on this coming Saturday, the Bulls’ future looks good and the fact that they will play in a final at Loftus Versfeld is already a huge feather in the cap for their director of rugby, Jake White.

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— Official Blue Bulls (@BlueBullsRugby) June 15, 2024

While White has repeatedly emphasized in press conferences during this year’s URC campaign how important it is for his players to gain experience to be competitive against the best clubs in Europe, one outstanding piece of detail has escaped most observers. This is that in a competition like the URC, it will not be easy to find a coach who can beat White himself as a strategist in terms of experience and shrewdness.

This former Springbok coach played the openly arrogant Irish in the Leinster camp like a fiddle and they never saw his brilliant game plan for Saturday’s semi-final coming.

If Saturday’s game is analysed thoroughly, any expert must admit that the Bulls could have won very comfortably.

Unfortunately, the home team had to deal with some kind of Celtic conspiracy, whereby the Scottish referee, Sam Grove-White and his assistants Mike Adamson (also a Scot) and Adam Jones (Welsh), as well as the Welsh TV-referee, Ben Whitehouse, was responsible for one of the worst performances in this year’s URC tournament. Everyone makes mistakes, but this performance – especially that of Grove-White and Whitehouse – was so obviously biased, that rugby fans cannot be blamed if it is considered suspicious and if there are people who insist on an official investigation following this fiasco.

The number of late and high tackles, as well as offenses such as obstruction, continuous offside play and illegal tactics at the scrums and breakdown points that were simply ignored by the match officials was shocking.

Just like two years ago when his team also beat Leinster on their home ground in Dublin in the URC semi-final, White can once again stick out his tongue at all his critics and he has shown that his plan to turn the Bulls into a super franchise – similar to the era between 2005 and 2010 – is well under way.

Whatever happens on Saturday, the Bulls is again established as a high-profile franchise and with most of the stars in the team committed to Loftus Versfeld as their rugby home through long-term contracts, this team should remain one of the top competitors for at least the next four years in the European competitions in which they participate.

Tickets for the URC final between the Bulls and the Glasgow Warriors, which kicks off this coming Saturday at 18:00, are already selling fast and it is hoped that the stadium will be full for the match. A packed Fortress Loftus has been talked about for years as one of the Bulls’ best allies. Even Leinster’s coach, Leo Cullen, admitted after the semi-final on Saturday that the crowd in the stadium with their blue flags was a very intimidating factor.

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