A new era? Bulls boss Jake White discusses player versitility

Springbok coach Rassie Erasmus has embraced the idea of utility players, now we are seeing it more and more in domestic rugby.

The Pretoria franchise has the luxury of Springboks Willie le Roux and Canan Moodie as utility backs, but it was the versatility of fellow World Cup winner Marco van Staden and then prop-come-hooker Jan-Hendrik Wessels that allowed White to be creative with his 5-3 bench on the weekend.

The Bulls ran out to a comfortable 31-19 win over trans-Juskei rivals the Lions on Saturday. Key to victory was their forward dominance, helped by the ability to shuffle their forwards around.

"I wasn't sure how long Marco van Staden could last," White told the press.

"I knew Grobbies [Johan Grobbelaar] could go to No.6, so I pulled the trigger early on Jan-Hendrink [Wessels] going to prop.

"If Marco [van Staden] had said 'Listen, I'm cramping and really tired' I'd just move Grobbies to No.6, put Alulutho [Tshakweni] to prop and move Jan-Hendrik to hooker.

"It was one of those ideas that I had - Jan-Hendrik has played the last three weeks at loosehead prop. The adaption of going to loosehead prop for me was probably a bit easier than it would have been to put him straight to hooker. And he did well â- when he came on at hooker we won all our line-outs he was involved in.

"It's a wonderful thing to have versatile players â- I mean Marco [van Staden] has played hooker for South Africa as well.

"So we're sitting in a very good position that we can have games where Marco can be on the bench as a hooker and not necessarily play him there because he can end up at the side of the scrum [at loose forward]."

White also mentioned the all-around skills of Keagan Johannes, who played a lot at flyhalf in school but has converted to scrumhalf at the Bulls.

"Because he's so versatile he's going to be very important for us going forward," the Bulls Director of Rugby said.

"He was always a No.10 at school, that's the ironic thing, and then he sort of moved to No.9.

"I was thinking about it this week... I've coached all over the world and you get guys like [Frederic] Michalak, Morgan Parra etc play No.9 and No.10 for France. It's very normal in France that a No.9 moves to flyhalf, look at Antoine Dupont.

"Sometimes there's a reason for it - there's an understanding about when you're a good scrumhalf what a flyhalf wants and vice versa."

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