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Cape Town - Blue Bulls coach Pine Pienaar says he was highly satisfied with the performance of some of his young players during their 22-all draw against the Free State Cheetahs on Saturday.
A try from 20-year-old centre Francois Venter and a last-gasp penalty from 21-year-old flyhalf Louis Fouché enabled the Bulls to snatch an unlikely draw.
Young loose-forwards, CJ Stander, Warwick Tecklenburg and Arno Botha also performed well, and this has coach Pienaar optimistic for the future.
"Some of those Under-20 players play like seniors and that makes me very happy. I'm excited about their future," Pienaar told the Beeld newspaper.
"Francois ran a very good line off Dewald (Potgieter) with his try and Dewald also did well to put him into the gap.
"I think Louis Fouché also played well. He was under a lot of pressure and that last kick was a difficult one.
"And then our replacements like Arno, Gerrit-Jan (Van Velze) and Rossouw (De Klerk) also made a good impact.
But the Bulls are still languishing in sixth position on the log and cannot afford any more slip-ups if they want to participate in the knock-out phase of the Currie Cup. They take on the second placed Western Province - a team they lost to badly earlier in the competition - at Loftus Versfeld on Saturday.
However, Pienaar is confident they could topple their arch rivals at fortress Loftus.
"We're growing every week as a team. Next up we have WP and we want to make up in front of our home crowd after we lost here in our last game against the Sharks."
A try from 20-year-old centre Francois Venter and a last-gasp penalty from 21-year-old flyhalf Louis Fouché enabled the Bulls to snatch an unlikely draw.
Young loose-forwards, CJ Stander, Warwick Tecklenburg and Arno Botha also performed well, and this has coach Pienaar optimistic for the future.
"Some of those Under-20 players play like seniors and that makes me very happy. I'm excited about their future," Pienaar told the Beeld newspaper.
"Francois ran a very good line off Dewald (Potgieter) with his try and Dewald also did well to put him into the gap.
"I think Louis Fouché also played well. He was under a lot of pressure and that last kick was a difficult one.
"And then our replacements like Arno, Gerrit-Jan (Van Velze) and Rossouw (De Klerk) also made a good impact.
But the Bulls are still languishing in sixth position on the log and cannot afford any more slip-ups if they want to participate in the knock-out phase of the Currie Cup. They take on the second placed Western Province - a team they lost to badly earlier in the competition - at Loftus Versfeld on Saturday.
However, Pienaar is confident they could topple their arch rivals at fortress Loftus.
"We're growing every week as a team. Next up we have WP and we want to make up in front of our home crowd after we lost here in our last game against the Sharks."
