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Bulls captain Victor Matfield, center, celebrate with teammates after winning the Super 14 rugby match at the Orlando stadium in Soweto, South Africa, Saturday May 29, 2010. Bulls beat Stommers 25-19. (AP Photo/Themba Hadebe)
The Bulls won their 20th consecutive home victory in a gripping and ferocious Super 14 final when they defeated a brave Stormers side 25 – 17 at Orlando Stadium in Soweto.
The Bulls now have three trophies in the last four years. They also join the Blues and the Crusaders as the only teams in Super Rugby to win back-to-back tournament victories.
The Bulls franchise is the new Super Rugby dynasty.
This is a dynasty built on a game plan designed for altitude (the Bulls are unbeaten in 20 consecutive home matches). It’s carried out by outstanding players all over the field, with two great players, Victor Matfield as the aerial specialist and Fourie du Preez, the best South African halfback since World War II, totally dominating their spheres of influence.
The Bulls demonstrated once again in the final their massive physical presence all over the field. They out-muscled the Stormers, a big and aggressive pack in its own right, with their blitzkrieg tactics of high balls and thunderous charges into the rucks and mauls. They forced three penalties, all converted, from a powerful scrum.
They also scored a clever try which kicked the side out to a 16 – 0 lead, which looked at the time, and proved to be, an unassailable advantage. Once again the key to the try was the impeccable timing of a pass by du Preez.
The Bulls ran a smash-and-grab forward push. The Stormers lined up with a slight gap between Adriaan Fondse guarding the ruck and Andries Bekker second man in the line. The stocky, electric-fast winger Francois Hougaard came from the blindside and scooted through the small gap to clear out for the try.
The mark of the Bulls, especially at altitude, is their ruthless finishing, either in scoring the crucial try or forcing a penalty or (and this was a rare occasion when Steyne missed his one attempt) knocking over a dropped goal.
They play a hard shouldered game in which they put continual pressure on the opposition with high balls which are chased relentlessly. It was significant, for example, that even Bryan Habana was pressured into dropping a high ball.
It is this chase, the best in Super Rugby for the last three years, that forces oppositions into making mistakes. Also it allows the Bulls to really punish opponents by smashing them to the ground. After the first 15 minutes, the Stormers had lost several players with injuries.
It is salutary for struggling franchises to remember that only six years ago the Bulls were a joke in Super Rugby. They were hardly able to win any games, even at home.
Slowly a team and a playing style has been put together that reflects the lung-bursting conditions of playing at altitude. Even the loss to the Stormers of Bryan Habana and Jacque Fourie to the Lions (two of the Bulls’ stars last season) has not weakened the Bulls to any great extent.
So the last Super 14 tournament has ended with the best team in the competition enjoying a convincing well-played and well-coached victory.
The season started with most pundits, myself included, dismayed about the boring kickathons of the 2008 season. The interpretation of the laws were tweaked or enforced to allow sides going into the tackle to have all the rights in placing the ball.
The final was a gripping game that revealed all the best about the unpredictability of rugby, even when it is played by a well-structured disciplined team like the Bulls.
The opening sequence in the final, for instance, with both teams running the ball wide, lasted 1 minute and 39 seconds, a lung-busting period of time at altitude. But to the credit of both sides they were still going hammer and tongs at each other at the end with the Stormers making a long series of plays to at least finish off the game (or attempt to finish it off) in style.
The player of the memorable match and of the tournament in my opinion was Fourie du Preez, the best player in the world right now and one of the great halfbacks in the history of the game.
A final point: 2010 is the last Super 14 tournament. Next year we have a Super 15 which involves more matches in each of the SANZAR countries. The Bulls have set the benchmark now and it will be fascinating to see how the other Super Rugby franchises try to stop their current dominance.
My guess is that this dynasty has a couple of years to run, or at least until Matfield and du Preez leave the team.
It’s game on now for the Super 15 tournament of 2011.