Time to give those magnificent Bulls their due

He was a Springbok No8 and until towards the end of his reign, he came close to being South Africa's finest post-isolation national coach. Now to the list of Nick Mallett accomplishments can be added the title of "Successful Soothsayer".

According to a French colleague who has his ear, Mallett made a prediction before the start of the Currie Cup season that few other South Africans would have. He predicted that the Blue Bulls would make the Currie Cup final.

Apparently people in France, believing the Northern Bulls who had bumbled through the Super 12 were the Blue Bulls, were incredulous when Mallett made this statement. But the former Bok coach was adamant - the Bulls may not win the Cup, but they would at least make the final.

Of course, Mallett is a pretty close friend of Bulls coach Heyneke Meyer, who served as his assistant for a time back in the late 1990s. And it is believed he did impart a bit of advice to Meyer, who was at his wits end and about to commit himself to an overseas move after another disastrous Super 12 season.

It is not known what Mallett might have said, but after watching the Bulls play, it is not difficult to guess.

His words might have been something like this: "Forget what other people might think and just play to your strengths. Improve your ball control and at all times keep it close to the forwards. It doesn't matter what type of game you play, if the opposing team don't get hold of the ball there is no way they can beat you."

There is one more formidable obstacle standing in the Blue Bull way this Saturday, but if that was Mallett's advice, it worked to a T for Meyer and his team.

Down in Durban and Cape Town this past few months there was a lot of derision about the quality of the Blue Bull backplay. How many times did we hear some wag or other drawing a laugh by suggesting to a gathering of rugby followers that "Perhaps Heyneke Meyer should consider playing his centres at prop".

The criticisms were not without merit. Tiaan Joubert and Dries Scholtz are not exactly fleet of foot or either sleek build. If either of them had played as hooker they would not have looked out of place.

But lampooning the Bulls for their backplay sort of missed the point. The intention was never to dazzle opponents with pretty boy stuff at the back. That was left to teams like Western Province, and we all saw where it got them.

While wings Gavin Passens and Wylie Human do possess pace in abundance, the primary responsibility of the centres was to keep the ball in front of the forwards and to defend. And as we saw in Durban last Saturday, the latter role they carried out with distinction.

In that sense, they were as much a part of the Blue Bull success story this past winter as were the forwards.

And what an awesome pack of forwards Meyer has under his command. It is easy to see now why both Mallett and, towards the end of his stint, Harry Viljoen, employed the current Bulls coach as their forward coach.

There was nothing frilly about the Bulls approach this season. But it was deadly effective. While I have criticised them recently for an apparent tendency to panic at times on attack and thus lose their handling skills when near the line, as they did when they threw away a certain try against the Sharks, for the most part their ball control has been outstanding.

My mind goes back to the only try scored in their 35-26 win over WP. We never really gave it much credit at the time because the air above Loftus was just filled with praise of goalkicking maestro Derick Hougaard.

But while there was nothing special about the score from an angle or switch of direction point of view, it was outstanding because of the length of time the Bulls managed to hold onto the ball before they eventually forced their way over in the corner.

My memory may be playing tricks on me here, but it might have been a similar story towards the end of their otherwise poor match against SWD Eagles. When the Bulls needed to hold onto the ball in the dying minutes in order to win that match, they did it superbly.

Of course, Mallett may not be the only soothsayer among us. Although I never had the guts to predict a Bulls win (I did so privately to colleagues) for fear of being labelled idiotic, I did warn in my preview last week that the Bulls were not being taken seriously enough.

The jist of my message was that any team good enough to make the semi-finals in this excellent year of Currie Cup rugby was good enough to beat the Sharks on their day.

Every week during the Currie Cup season the Bulls critics have expected them to be exposed. I'll be honest, I thought it would happen both on the day they played Natal in the preliminary rounds and when WP played them in the Top Eight a few weeks later.

On neither occasion did it happen. They did struggle against SWD and for some unknown reason they managed to squander a big lead against the Elephants. But in the big ones which counted, the Bulls were up for it on every occasion - they beat the Lions and WP and drew with the Sharks (where they should have won).

Their only defeat against a top team before the semis was in the Bloemfontein game against Free State Cheetahs, when they only lost by six points.

So who will win on Saturday? On paper, the Lions have a better allround team. But if you look at the game they play, the Bulls have the perfect unit.

My mind goes back to the last Ellis Park final between these teams in 1987. Transvaal scored two tries to nil but the Bulls won with something to spare. The plaudits were heaped on Naas Botha who kicked all the points, but really it was a magnificent pack that set up the victory and laid the foundation for Naas to grab the headlines.

The Bulls of 2002 will be relying on similar ingredients and I for one will not be betting my house against them turning back the clock.