Bulls shut down, shut up in one-sided URC defeat to Leinster in Dublin final

The Star

15-06-2025

Hindsight is a scurrilous science because it is easy to be a genius when you have it, yet when we saw how a Leinster team containing 12 British and Irish Lions obliterated the Bulls, you wonder why many South Africans thought the South Africans had a realistic chance in the URC final in Dublin.
The Bulls were shut out, shut down and shut up by a Leinster team masquerading as the Ireland national team. And the Dubliners did it from the first minute. They smashed the Bulls back in every aspect of the game and 80 minutes later, the Bulls had not fashioned one single attacking movement comprising more than four phases.
In short, they did not fire a shot in crumbling to an embarrassing 32-7 defeat, their third loss in URC finals in the last four years.
It will be crushing for Jake White and his team — they lost to the Stormers in the first URC final, last year they failed to pitch up when favourites to the Glasgow Warriors in Pretoria, and now a humiliation in Dublin.
And it will hurt the Bulls all the more that the chief architect of their destruction was former Springbok coach Jacques Nienaber. The Leinster defence completely smothered any Bulls' attempt to attack.
To be fair to the Bulls, often the Leinster rush defence was palpably offsides. The Leinster centre Jordie Barrett repeatedly tackled man and ball way off side but referee Andrea Piardi and his touch judges did not pick him up.
The astonishing fact, though, is that the Bulls were emasculated up front, which gave that rush defence a second or two out of the starting blocks because the Bulls spent the evening back pedaling from the forward exchanges.
For seven months of the URC league phase, the Bulls' set piece went forward. Relentlessly. But when it mattered most, the Bulls forwards were neutralised. The callous might say they were neutered.
Even the mighty Wilco Louw, who had been supreme all season, could not gain his customary advantage. The extenuating circumstance was that the Leinster pack, as a unit blasted through their Bulls opponents.
There was a moment in the second half that summed it up — the Irishmen had won another scrum penalty and Louw's opponent, Andrew Porter, jumped about like a lunatic. Leinster had a plan for the scrums and they applied it magnificently.
With zero front ball, the Bulls had nothing to offer. All of their plans remained on the team room blackboard.
At 19-0 after 20 minutes they were history. No way can you start so badly overseas at a hostile venue and expect to win.
With the Bulls' pack getting a bloody nose, there was no momentum to launch attacks. It was good night nurse way long before half-time.
Ironically, the Bulls' best period of the game was a five minute period before half-time, but like the Sharks in the semi-final at Loftus Versfeld, the Bulls had little attacking know-how.