The Bulls must eradicate sloppy errors from their game if they want to end up on the winning side against a tough Munster outfit in Limerick on Friday, coach Johan Ackermann said.
After kicking off their United Rugby Championship campaign with a convincing 47-13 victory over Zebre in Parma last week, Ackermann said there was plenty of room for improvement from his squad.
“The biggest thing we take is that we got away with the win against Zebre,” Ackermann said.
“Last year is still in our memory, and we lost the first two games at home, so we were always nervous.
“We haven’t played a lot of warm-up games.
“There was only about 40 minutes of game time for each player who played against Zebre, so we were a bit nervous that we might not be as good as we wanted to be.
“Although we had a good build-up with the guys, we made some sloppy errors in those first few minutes.
“That’s the part we must correct because Munster will bring a different challenge.
“If we’re not accurate in our entries or exits in the 22, they will punish you.
“We showed a lot of fight in that first 15 minutes where we made a lot of errors and still kept Zebre out.
“If we had conceded there, it would have given them a lot of energy.
“For me, that was the positive. Against a tough opponent, in a tough place to come to after the travel, the guys showed a lot of fight on defence.
“We will enjoy the performance tonight, especially defensively.
“Our line-outs were good. We won almost all our line-outs apart from one in the corner.
“The tight five played really well and put in a lot of hard yards,” he said.
“We had reasonable success in our own line-outs, and we stole a couple of balls, so that’s good.
“The scrum was a bit mixed. We started very well in the first half and then in the second half we conceded a few penalties.
“That’s a big work-on for us. You’re not always going to have the luxury of a scoreboard, so that’s something we can really improve.”
Ackermann praised Bulls debutant Curwin Bosch, saying he had made a good impression against Zebre.
“It was his first game for the Bulls and he controlled the game well,” Ackermann said.
“He kicked very well out of hand and slotted all his goal kicks.
“He hasn’t played for a couple of weeks because of injury, so to come out under pressure in your first game is a good base to build from.
“Hopefully it will just get better as the season progresses.”
Ackermann expects Munster to pose a much tougher challenge than Zebre did.
“Limerick is a tough place to play,” he said.
“The conditions are going to change quite drastically.
“We’ve had beautiful weather in Italy, and tonight it was around 24°C or 25°C when we kicked off.
“It will probably rain, and there will be a temperature drop.
“Then you’ve got the hostile crowd, and they’re going to be really fired up.
“It’s a team that’s constantly in the playoffs and constantly near the top of this competition.
“They’re going to bring a totally different challenge, so we have to reset, recover from travel and get the boys ready to play.”
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