Bulls ask SA referees boss for clarity

RUDE OR JUST THE RULES: The Bulls have sought clarity over how they must 'interact' with referees.

This follows their demoralising 12-45 loss to the Sharks in Durban this past weekend.

Bulls Director of Rugby Jake White revealed that captain Nizaam Carr felt, at times, he was "ignored" by referee Marius van der Westhuizen during the Preparation Series match at Kings Park last Friday.

The Sharks scored seven tries to two, as they outplayed the Bulls in a wet Durban.

White spoke about the Bulls' horror show in the first quarter - when they were 5-31 down after 24 minutes - but then held the Sharks scoreless till the 72nd minute.

Centre Dawid Kellerman scored a try to narrow the gap to 12-31.

However, the Bulls were issued with two yellow cards late in the half, playing with 13 men. The Sharks scored two tries in that period to seal a comprehensive and deserved.

"It is never nice when you are on the receiving end of such a result, but there was a lot of fighting spirit," White said of his team, adding: "When you have that, as a coach there is a lot of things you can work on."

The Bulls' Director of Rugby dismissed the notion that the 18 penalties his team conceded were down to poor discipline.

"I am not concerned about discipline issues," White replied, when asked by @rugby365com about the high penalty count.

"I had a nice chat with the head of SA Referees [Banks Yantolo]," he said, adding: "I was concerned about the manner in which the game was managed towards the [Bulls] captain [Nizaam Carr].

"Nizaam just felt that, at times, he could not get his message across [to referee Marius van der Westhuizen].

"He felt, at times, he was almost ignored. I just wanted to know why and how we have to go about it, if we have a captain on the field [and he can't speak with the referee].

"At the breakdown, I felt there were a couple of calls that could go the other way. The line-out was managed in a certain way, which I felt could have been managed differently.

"It is not an attack on any official. When a captain comes to you in the change room and says: 'I felt just could not get my message across. I felt I was blocked every time I wanted to talk [to the referee]'.

"I have to chase that up, find out what is the reason. I would like to know, what do we do going forward if we want our captain to have some sort of rapport with match officials."

The Bulls coach spoke of the 11 players who just 'graduated' from the junior ranks and said they will learn from the experience.

"It is a great learning curve for us."

And there were no additional injury concerns.

@king365ed

@rugby365com