WP bay for Blue Bulls blood

Western Province coach Kobus van der Merwe believes JP Nel should be suspended after the Blue Bulls centre got his third yellow card of the Currie Cup at the weekend.

"I can't see how JP Nel can be cleared of three yellow cards. They were all for off-the-ball incidents. It must go to a disciplinary hearing. It will be interesting to see whether they suspend him for a week or two," Van der Merwe said on Monday.

"(Sharks lock) Johann Muller was not suspended after he got his third yellow card, but they were all for slowing down the ball. I looked at the statistics and the Bulls and Sharks have six yellow cards. We've only had three."

SA Rugby's manager of policies and regulations, Christo Ferreira, said he expected Nel's hearing to take place on Tuesday.

However, he doubted Van der Merwe's assertion that all the player's yellow cards were for foul play - the first was for a dangerous tackle, the second for repeated infringements and the third for misconduct.

The chances of Nel being suspended are therefore slim and the Bulls won't take kindly to Van der Merwe stirring the pot ahead of Saturday's semifinal at Loftus.

However, the psychological warfare will probably only intensify in the build-up to the match. It is, after all, a semifinal.

Van der Merwe has also done away with his usual policy of transparency by closing off training sessions this week. The media were welcome on Monday and will be for about 20 minutes on Tuesday, but Thursday's schedule reads: closed, closed, closed.

Even Tuesday morning's scrum and lineout sessions aren't open and one has to wonder why it's necessary for this kind of siege mentality. Lineout sessions are right up there with watching paint dry anyway.

What Van der Merwe is probably concerned about is that his starting line-up will leak out to the Bulls via the media.

The team WP announce is always the one that plays barring a late injury. For the past few weeks the team announcement has shifted to Thursdays and that will again be the case this week. It certainly wouldn't be a surprise if there are a few "withdrawals" on the day of the match because of a mysterious flu bug.

It almost feels as if we're living in Durban where Van der Merwe had a good apprenticeship in this kind of thing.

Be that as it may, the team also got through a lot of serious work on Tuesday, including a video session on the Bulls' impressive win over the Cheetahs at the weekend.