Thankfully sanity has prevailed and Victor Matfield has been cleared to lead the Bulls on Saturday against the Waratahs.

Matfield had been cited and appeared at a SANZAR judicial hearing on Monday. After viewing the incident from multiple views, advocate Jannie Lubbe concluded that Matfield had struck Elsom in a lawful manner cleaning out at the ruck and the charges were dismissed.

Obviously the Brumbies will be peeved. They should try playing rugby instead of crying about incidents such as these, and calling the Bulls names!

Bulls coach Frans Ludeke was extremely happy to get his inspirational captain back and said “Victor provides so much to the team and it is great to know that he will be available to play. The Waratahs are a quality side and we certainly need to face them with our strongest possible team.”

Injury update

The Bulls have recovered remarkably well after Saturday’s game with the Brumbies. Those that were causing most concern appear on the road to recovery.

Pierre Spies caused the most concern when he went down in severe pain during the match. Scans have shown there is no structural or cruciate damage, he simply injured a muscle behind the knee. Spies will play but won’t train with the side until the captains run on Friday.

Bulls team doctor Org Strauss had this to say, “He (Spies) actually injured a muscle behind the knee, which was good news, as we’d feared some structural damage to the knee. We expect him to be fit.”

Dewald Potgieter is recovering from his knee injury and is available for selection. The question in the loose forwards will be who do you leave out? Spies, Stegmann and Potgieter would be my preferred combination, with Wannenburg on the bench. It would be a tough call for Derick Kuun to miss out however.

Danie Rousouw is also expected to play on Saturday after a neck strain last week.

The only player not considered was Jaco Pretorius who is still recovering from a quad strain, thus Stephan Dippenaar will remain at outside centre.

Match awards v the Brumbies (source: Bulls website)

The weekly Bulls team awards were dominated by the forwards with tighthead prop Werner Kruger leading the way.

Kruger made the most cleans, Deon Stegmann the most tackles with a mammoth 16 tackles. His workrate has been fantastic and other than the tackles, his speed to the breakdowns has been fantastic. While fetcher flanker play has to be redefined due to the new law interpretations, Stegmann has shown he has adapted better than any other player. I wonder if Springbok coach Peter de Villiers is considering rewarding Stegmann if he keeps us this form!

Lock Flip van der Merwe won the award for exceptional performance after a great starting performance. The depth at lock will hopefully allow Matfield a chance to rest at some stage, especially when old mate Bakkies Botha returns.

Morne Steyn won 2 awards, including the best back as he scored 35 points which included 2 tries.

The key to victory for me was the team effort rather than individuals and forwards coach Johan van Graan had this to say “We again reacted and adapted very well to the referee’s interpretation of the rucks and mauls. We had possession 80 times and recycled the ball 80 times.”

“The restarts and line-outs were very competitive, with both teams winning two of the opponent’s balls. We are very happy with the scrums and we again scored two tries from this phase” continued van Graan.

Defence coach John McFarland said “We became stronger defensively as the game went on. The new application have brought about changes to techniques and require a high level of conditioning to defend for 80 minutes. We did that with some success and made 112 tackles with a 90% completion.”