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While there were still several battered and bruised bodies from the Durban loss, the Bulls were happy to hear that former Northampton Saints lock Juandre Kruger will be fit to take his place in the squad after missing the Sharks game with a shoulder injury.
But the news wasn’t that good as it seems Bok midfielder Jaco Pretorius and promising flanker Ockie Kruger will only be ready in a week or two. There was some hope that Pretorius, who is recovering from a foot operation, and Kruger, who has a hamstring strain, would be ready this week, but team doctor Org Strauss confirmed that was not the case.
Kruger will struggle to find a spot in the starting line-up, as Wilhelm Steenkamp, who replaced him put up an excellent performance in the loose, and made a telling 16 tackles on his own. The only player to make more tackles was back Stefan Watermeyer, who had an impressive tackle count of 18 for the afternoon
The Bulls will accentuate defence this week with John McFarland likely to crack the whip as they missed 36 tackles on the day and made a total of 30 handling errors. With statistics like that, you are unlikely to win any game at this level.
The walking wounded was unusually high on Monday with a number of players missing out on the practice session. Fudge Mabeta (knee), Werner Kruger (knee), Sello Mametsa (quad), Watermeyer (knee) and Gerrit-Jan van Velze (calf) all were rested from the session but should be able to train by Wednesday and be in contention for selection.
The other bit of good news was former Western Province scrumhalf Dustin Jinka arrival at the practice session after spending last week working with Bulls fitness coach Basil Carzils on his conditioning. Jinka will now also be considered for selection after moving from Cape Town two weeks ago.
