Frustrated Jake White lays into Bulls following Champions cup loss

Usually a fortress for the Bulls, the Loftus Versveld faithful saw their charges slump to a 21-30 loss to the English visitors. The Bulls dominated large parts of the contest but were unable to convert pressure into points. The hosts were also made to pay for several soft handling errors on attack.

"I'm really frustrated," the World Cup-winning coach told Rugby365.

"We had all the chances in the beginning, again first lineout - double banking, second lineout we get stopped one metre from the line and knock the ball on," White lamented.

"What people and even the players must understand is in this competition, these are the best players, playing club rugby in the world.

"When you don't take your chances and you're not on top of your game, they will find a way to beat you."

"We said we weren't going to give them penalties, we said we weren't going to give them entries into our 22 [metre area] we said we need to play well at homeâ¦we never did any of those things.

"That for me summarises what I'm feeling, there's no use just talking about it, otherwise it means nothing."

The Bulls are 0-2 in the Champions Cup but such is the nature of the pool system that they still have a chance to make the playoffs. They travel to France to face Castres Olympique on 11 January.

"You're still alive in this competition because it doesn't mean you have to win every game to be in the playoffs," continued White.

"But we make it very hard for ourselves because you can't lose a home game and not only did we lose we didn't get a point so that makes it even tougher.

"There's still Castres away and we still got Stade Francais here and if we win both those games the chances are very good that you'll make the top 16.

"Because of the fact that some teams have won and lost in different pools and those pools are as competitive as ours is.

"I'll have a look at the end of the weekend and see where we are on the log, see who's done well in the other pools and you'll soon get a feel if you could make the top 16 and then make a decision on what is next.

"Are we going to go into the next phase of the competition because you can actually go into the Challenge Cup as well.

"Or you can be completely out and get time off to regroup for the URC and that's not something I'm obviously thinking about but it is something to have a look at."

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