Why the Bulls are losing

A flower that can make big men tremble

Three weeks ago the rugby started.  By rugby I mean Super rugby.  Sports inflation has taken us from Super 8 to Super 15.  So now they just call it Super rugby.  The format changed to include more games, because apparently the unions did not like paying the players in the off season.  So now the winter game of rugby starts in February.  This expansion is wrong.  We need strength against strength, not more games where we have 43-0 score lines.  As a further insult to fans, a team now gets 4 points FOR NOT PLAYING A GAME.  To the organisers: “We are not stupid.  We understand the concept of not playing the same number of games.” By awarding 4 points to a bye, it means that in super rugby not playing and winning are valued the same.

When it comes to supporting rugby I have it easy.  I support the best team in the country.  This is of course a personal opinion, backed up by facts.  The Bulls won the Currie cup more than any other team.  Now you will find lots of sites telling you the Western Province are 32 times champions and the Bulls 23.  The important thing to notice is that the Blue Bulls (or Northern Transvaal rugby union as it was then known) only started in 1938.  Anything that happened before then is of no interest.  Study the table below and consider yourself educated. 

Current logo

Number of Currie cup wins:
Union               Post Bulls    Pre-Bulls    Total
Blue Bulls                 23          0               23
Border                       0          2                2
Free State                  4          0                4
Griekwas                   1          2                3
Lions                         8          1                9
Natal                         6          0                6
Western Province    15        17              32

So well done to province for beating Griekwas all those years.  Further to this the Bulls won the Super 14 three times, the Lions won the Super 10 once.  Those from the coast won, well, bugger all.  You should support the team of the area you grew up in.  Thus Pretoria -->Bulls.  Easy.  If you grew up in the cape it means your support of province is a birth defect. 

One can choose to be responsible for one’s own happiness, or you can make it the responsibility of 15 starters and 7 reserves.  I support the latter.  As a strategy to happiness it has its risks.  I therefore don’t watch early in the season.  That way if they play badly and I have to shoulder the joy responsibility myself, I am prepared.  If they are doing well, the risk is not so great to entrust them with my state of mind.  But that choice is made about halfway into the season. 

This year, because of a tradition of watching with The Man from Atlantis, I watched the first couple of games.  The Bulls won the first two, but only because the opposition were clueless.  Two very close games.  The third games we lost with 7 points, but it should have been more.  The men in blue were dreadful.  Ghastly.  Abominable.  Crap. 

I don’t mind losing.  I’ve had to come to terms with it.  It is just a game.  When the Bulls did not win a single game in the 2002 season, I did not burn the jersey.  Did not wear it mind you, but the jersey (with about 3 sponsors back on it) and I survived. 

It is my nature and job to analyse things and this I applied to the season so far.  The reason the Bulls are playing rubbish this season is colour.  Given South Africa’s history of racial segregation it is important that sport should be colour blind.  But that refers to the colour of the player’s skin, not his shoes.  The number of red and orange shoes on the field is inversely proportional to the quality of the rugby played.  Rugby shoes should be black.  If you play in any other colour shoe, it drains your ability.  If the Blue Bulls have any intention to do well in this season, they should burn the red shoes and start focusing on the important things, like black shoes.