TALKING POINT: Defeat at last hurdle shouldn't stop Bulls being celebrated

The Vodacom Bulls were a disappointment in the Vodacom United Rugby Championship Grand Final but if you introduced me to people who actually thought the Pretoria team was going to win you would be introducing people who live in Cloud Cuckooland.

Apart from the fact that the Bulls had to dig particularly deep to beat the Springbok laden Hollywoodbets Sharks the week before, and looked out on their feet at the final whistle, there was also the travel factor to take into account. And the fact they were not playing a Mickey Mouse team. They were playing Leinster.

Several months from the end of the season Leinster were overwhelming favourites to win the competition and rightly so. They have an international team in all but name, with their phalanx of Ireland internationals backed up by an All Black in Jordy Barrett and Springbok double World Cup winner RG Snyman.

In the past few seasons Leinster have been tripped up at the semifinal stage but invariably, with the exception of last year when critically they had to travel to Pretoria, those were always with under-strength teams. Complacency did them against the Bulls at the RDS Arena in 2022 and again against Munster at the Aviva the following year.

THEY 'CROKED' BUT THEY DIDN'T CHOKE

There was never going to be complacency this time as apart from the memory of their previous defeats to the Bulls, and let’s not forget the Bulls were one of only two teams to beat them in league play this season too, Leinster received their wake-up call when they lost their Investec Champions Cup semifinal to Northampton Saints.

That was a freak, upset result but pretty much an anomaly in the Leinster season. Before they lost to Northampton they smashed Leicester Tigers 62-0 and Glasgow Warriors 52-0. The Champions Cup semi was one of the biggest upsets in any sport this year mostly because Leinster had looked so invincible before that. I remember writing in the supersport.com preview to that semi that Leinster couldn’t lose.

Well, as it turned out, they could. But it wasn’t going to happen again, and Leinster’s comprehensive semifinal win over the Warriors, who before that had unceremoniously dumped the DHL Stormers out of the competition, was an indicator that Leinster would be on point this time. They were.

The Bulls weren’t, but even if they had been, the chances of them winning were negligible. Which it was why it was good to see that while there was some outpouring of grief among fans and some critics who must have been much more optimistic than I was - in my preview I predicted a 12-point win for Leinster but at heart knew I was being conservative - there wasn’t too much reference in the aftermath to that dreaded ‘C’ word.

FULL TIME at Croke Park 💔@Vodacom #URC | @URCOfficial_RSA #ForeverBlue pic.twitter.com/YpFFBLDN7s

— Official Blue Bulls (@BlueBullsRugby) June 14, 2025

After four successive defeats in finals, starting with the Rainbow Cup decider in Treviso in 2021, it would be treading the easy, predictable and lazy option to turn to the ‘Choking’ narrative as some did before the Bulls’ quarterfinal against Edinburgh. Had they lost then, at home to a team that finished well below them on the log, that might well have been a choke.

The Stormers team of a few decades ago rightly had the ‘C’ word constantly hovering because of where they tended to lose their semifinals. At home, in those days at Newlands. Twice Crusaders travelled there, once the Sharks who flew all the way back from Brisbane to play it and also the Highlanders back in 1999, and in all of those Super Rugby semis it was the visitors who won.

So yes, the choking label fitted that team. It didn’t fit the 2010 side that lost the final at Orlando Stadium though, because that was an away final.

CULLEN’S WISE ADVICE SHOULD BE HEEDED

The choking label can’t be fitted to a Bulls team that played all but one of those finals they lost away from home. Instead, Leinster coach Leo Cullen, who knows his way around the choking argument after three successive defeats in European finals before this year’s exit in the semis, provided a sensible perspective after this past weekend’s game on how the Bulls and their fans should view their latest defeat.

Cullen asked: “Is your season a failure if you get to the final and lose it?”

Speaking to the Irish media after the game, Cullen said that both teams that make a final should be celebrated.

“Unfortunately, you guys, the way you write, the losers of a final are suddenly failures. Whereas (you do really well) to get to the final day of the competition. I think you need to celebrate the two teams that are in the final.”

He wouldn’t be wrong if it was a fair world, and in a fair world neither should the Bulls coach Jake White be the target of the frustrations of people who had dreams for his team that exceeded common sense.

If White was a failure this season, what of the other 14 coaches that finished beneath him on the URC log? Should they all be sacked?

I appreciate there might be things happening behind the scenes we don’t know about, that is always possible, but on the prima facie evidence of his four seasons in the URC - losing finalists three times and quarterfinalists once - White is the most consistent coach in the competition.

JAKE HAS BOUNCED BACK WELL

Questioning his right to continue in that role would be as stupid as the question directed at him following the quarterfinal defeat in Cape Town in 2023, when he was asked if he might consider stepping aside. That was an embarrassing moment for the rest of the people in the press conference room, for we knew Jake would bounce back.

Which he has with a second placed finish in the last two URCs. The winners of that 2023 quarterfinal, the Stormers, have gone backwards with two fifth placed finishes and two successive quarterfinal exits.

Last year was a disaster because the final was at home, but that the Bulls wouldn’t get across the line this year was always probable given that second place isn’t good enough to secure home ground advantage in a final. With Leinster's depth of talent and their squad they are going to be hard to dislodge from the pole position in the foreseeable future.

Catching them will require patience, meaning continuity in coaching staff and in playing personnel from one season to the next. Leinster didn’t build their success overnight. White has been steadily building his squad through astute recruitment as well as good management of his resources and it would be the height of folly now to throw the baby out with the dish water by contemplating any kind of change.

White isn’t the first coach to come second to Leinster, he won’t be the last, and coming second is surely always better than third, fourth, fifth…