Champions Cup: Jake White’s Bulls to try put pressure on Antoine Dupont

Bulls boss Jake White insists his side needs to build pressure on superstar Antoine Dupont to limit his influence in their clash with Toulouse.

Dupont was announced this week as the Player of the Tournament for the 2023 Six Nations making him only the second player to win it three times and the third to win it back-to-back.

There is no denying the star quality of the Frenchman, who sets the bar for scrum-halves worldwide and will surely go down as one of the game’s greats.

Pressure

White understands Dupont’s importance in the last-16 tie and looks to find ways to reduce his impact on the game.

“I’m sure there are ways – and I’m not going to divulge those ways!” White said.

“But we’ve played against sides when I was coaching South Africa where we had (players like Dupont). One that comes to mind is the Argentina team that had Agustin Pichot playing there, and he was as important to them as Antoine Dupont is to the French team and Toulouse.

“But the one way anything happens to any player is to build pressure – pressure changes actions of players, and it happens in all sports.

“You watch what pressure does to golfers, what pressure does to decision-making in the last 10 minutes of a game… And I think that’s the key. We’ve got to build pressure and find ways that the whole team can put pressure collectively on the opposition.

“That filters down to the decision-makers, as it does to us. There’s nothing unique to trying to understand how you build pressure.”

Poor form

The Bulls are currently not in a great space and have lost their last eight in all competitions, making the extremely difficult task of facing Toulouse in France even harder.

Last time out the Pretoria side did come up short against Ulster last time out but showed some signs of improvement.

“Nothing’s changed. We’re still obviously needing a result, but as I said, it was a much better performance (against Ulster),” White said.

“We’re now in a knockout game against one of the best sides in Europe. People often use the phrase that it doesn’t get tougher than this, but having coached here, I know how big rugby is in Toulouse, and how good they are when it comes to this sort of competition.

“I think they’ve won it five times, and have played in a couple of finals. It’s a big ask for us this week, but we’re looking forward to it.”

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