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Cape Town - A calamitous second half display for Western Province at Loftus Versfeld back on August 22 saw them walloped 47-29 by the Blue Bulls.
In that Currie Cup match, Province had taken a 16-15 lead into the break before leaking five second half tries as they were dismantled by the hosts.
Now, on Friday night, WP will have a chance to redeem themselves when the Blue Bulls visit Newlands.
“The Bulls had derailed our campaign in the first place and there were elements out of that game afterwards that were quite honestly embarrassing,” WP coach John Dobson said this week.
“For us this is our chance to put that right. I think we’re a much better team than what happened at Loftus and this is our chance to show it.”
Dobson hopes that revenge and the personal nature of the match will be a motivation for his side on Saturday.
“We’ve had to read for the last three or four weeks that the Bulls are the future of South African rugby and how they out-Provinced Province and how they play our style of rugby,” he said.
Scrumhalf Nic Groom was equally disturbed by what happened at Loftus last month.
“A lot of us hadn’t experienced that before ever … I certainly haven’t in my career in the last five or six years. We spoke about it after the game about how setting the record straight is something that we needed to do,” he said.
But Dobson is under no illusions as to how difficult Friday's clash will be.
“Our team that ran out on Saturday didn’t have one Springbok and they had seven on the field,” he said.
“To go up against a team with seven Springboks with momentum is going to be a big challenge for us but I believe we’ve got the belief and the confidence back and I do think we’ve got the game to do it.”
Dobson, who will be naming his team later on Tuesday, added that this was “the biggest game of our season so far.”
