House of Pain lies in wait for Bulls

The Bulls head to the Highlanders' Carisbrook stadium, dubbed "The House of Pain," in some discomfort themselves after the 32-10 drubbing they received from the Crusaders on Saturday.

Although two players, Springbok centre Wynand Olivier and tighthead prop Rayno Gerber, have joined the squad for the remainder of their Super 14 tour of New Zealand, neither will be considered for selection for the Highlanders clash.

With a number of first-choice players still recovering from injuries, Bulls coach, Heyneke Meyer, has been forced to gamble on the fitness of his players on tour.

This has been compounded by the competition rule that a tour squad may have a maximum of only 26 players.

This ruling could have posed problems last week against the Crusaders after Johan Roets (knee injury) and JP Nel (suspension) had both returned home, and only Frikkie Welsh crossed the Indian Ocean as a replacement.

Luckily for the Bulls a potentially sticky situation was avoided.

This week, however, the Bulls will go into the match with their strongest team available, as they want to win at least one of their two remaining fixtures on tour to give themselves a chance of making the semifinals with a final run at home.

"Wynand has already rejoined us, and Rayno will take part in our practices on Tuesday," coach Heyneke Meyer said.

"But they won't be considered for this weekend as they are not completely over their injuries.

"What makes it difficult for us with a squad of 26 and not 28 is that if we want to bring someone in then we have to send a player back, and that upsets the team element."

Meyer admits that there is a lot of hard work ahead for the team, especially in the scrums after forwards coach Pote Human rushed back to South Africa after the death of his father.

"Our scrums weren't good, but then again neither Danie Thiart or Ruan Vermeulen are recognised tightheads.

"We are waiting for Rayno and Richard Bands to be ready.

"People criticise our scrums, but we pushed the Crusaders off their ball twice and had two tightheads.

"Still there is a lot of work to be done, and it isn't easy without Pote here.

"I'll have to take control of the forwards and work with them this week."

Another area where Meyer hopes to see a vast improvement is in the tactical kicking game, which he believes was one of the major reasons that the Bulls failed in Christchurch.

"We lost the game through our tactical kicking.

"The wind played a big factor in the first half and Derick was punting the ball more, but it was because he was under pressure.

"Our kicking was not good and we gave them opportunities to counter attack us.

"That was where we lost the game.

"Daniel Carter beat us last year with tactical kicking and they won the battle again on Saturday."

Meyer said the next two games would show how much of a success the tour was for the team.

"If we win the next one, we have won three out of four and that will make it our most successful tour yet.

"Then we will be set up nicely for a run at the semis with our last four games in South Africa."

The Highlanders will not be easy to beat, though. The team from Dunedin are fresh from a week's break and will also receive a boost by having their All Blacks back for the game.