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When the Chiefs travel to Pretoria, thoughts will go back to 2009, when they played the Super Rugby final against the Bulls. It was, and still is, the biggest score with which a team has won a Super Rugby final: 61-17. Fourie du Preez (2), Victor Matfield, Wynand Olivier, Pierre Spies and Danie Rossouw scored tries and are still playing for the Bulls today. Bryan Habana, now at the Stormers, also scored 2 tries. With 19 points, Morne Steyn also had a big hand in the win that day.
Today, things are different. The Bulls have struggled this season to find their form which gave them 3 ***les in 4 years. With the likes of Matfield, du Preez, Spies, Steenkamp, Spies and Morne Steyn, things should look better for the Pretoria side, stuck in the middle with 22 points from 9 matches and in 8th position. With a total of 12 points behind the first available wild card for the play offs, things don't look right and the Bulls can look ahead to next year. Frans Ludeke, the Bulls coach, denies that it's over though. With Bjorn Basson, the side does have a good replacement for Bryan Habana but the aging players Matfield, Bakkies Botha, Fourie du Preez and Gürthro Steenkamp seem to be less motivated this year. Can they turn it around and still make the play offs? Can they beat the Chiefs, who they crushed to win the ***le 2 years ago? Dewald Potgieter, Jaco Pretorius, Victor Matfiel (captain) and Francois Hougaard all suffered injuries and are unsure for this weekend. On their tour to the Tasman, they were beaten by the Crusaders 27-0 and the Reds 39-30 before losing last week to the Force in Perth (26-21).
While Matfield and Hougaard are expected to shrug off their injuries in time to face the Chiefs the real concerns are Pretorius and Potgieter. Matfield admitted after the team's fifth loss in nine matches that the Bulls now need to win all of their remaining games if they are to reach the play offs.
The Chiefs have hopes to finally shake off their bad start after a win over the Lions last week. The Chiefs don't show any real weakness in defense with their best match against the Crusaders and also keeping the Sharks from scoring a try earlier (15-9 win in Hamilton). With only 1 point behind the Bulls, they really want to snap up the 4, and maybe 5, points on offer to pass them on the log. The Chiefs reported no serious injury concerns after the Lions clash and will be making a late calls on the availability winger Sitiveni Sivivatu and prop Nathan White who was withdrawn from the match in the final hour.
When we look at the history between the 2 teams, we see that in the latter seasons, the Bulls have the upper hand with 3 wins in 4 seasons but when we go back further, and get to the stage before the Bulls uprising, we see that the Chiefs had an almost guarenteed win over the Northern Transvaal side. From 1998 onwards until 2006 there were only 2 wins for the side from Pretoria. The match in 2006 ended in a 26-26 draw.
2010 Chiefs 19 - 33 Bulls
2009 Bulls 33 - 27 Chiefs
2008 Chiefs 43 - 27 Bulls
2007 Bulls 30 - 27 Chiefs
2006 Chiefs 26 - 26 Bulls
2005 Bulls 28 - 26 Chiefs
2004 Chiefs 24 - 22 Bulls
2003 Bulls 29 - 26 Chiefs
2002 Chiefs 53 - 24 Bulls
2001 Bulls 37 - 49 Chiefs
2000 Chiefs 40 - 7 Bulls
