URC semi-final: Johan Ackermann welcomes Bulls v Glasgow switch to Murrayfield

The Warriors’ decision to move their United Rugby Championship (URC) semi-final against the Bulls from Scotstoun to Murrayfield in Edinburgh has been welcomed by Johan Ackermann.

The Warriors’ home ground has a capacity of just 7 300 and by moving the game to Murrayfield (67 000 capacity), the Scots can make far more on the gate takings. The Bulls won’t care about more Glasgow fans being at the semi-final — they are loving the fact that the game will be on turf and not synthetic grass.

It is no secret that South African teams hate playing on the 4G surfaces of some of the stadiums in Europe, such as Scotstoun. The Bulls-Warriors semi-final takes place at 3.30pm on Saturday, with the Stormers-Leinster match kicking off on the same day at 6.30pm at the Aviva Stadium in Dublin.

“I see we play at Murrayfield,” Ackermann said, after his team had crushed Munster 45-14 in the quarter-final at Loftus Versfeld. “It’s a grass surface, so it makes a big difference for us.”

The Bulls and the Warriors have had some tight tussles in recent years, including a URC final won by the Warriors in Pretoria. Since then, the Bulls lost to the Warriors in Glasgow in a URC match (21-12) and, also at Scotstoun, lost 25-21 in a Champions Cup quarter-final.

Ackermann is convinced his team is due for a win over the Warriors.

“In the Champions Cup match, we made mistakes which they clinically exploited," said Ackermann.

“But in the URC game, they got a penalty try that swung the momentum, and it was clear in the review that it shouldn’t have been a penalty try. I was unhappy that technology wasn’t used to make a big call.

“Hopefully, we won’t get to that scenario in the semi-final. If they’re the better team, they deserve to win, and the other way around.

“It’s a nice challenge. We’ve lost twice against them, and now we get the opportunity to play them again, but this time at a different venue.”

The move to Murrayfield favours the Bulls because the Warriors are used to the artificial surface at Scotstoun, which gives them a significant advantage over visiting teams, especially SA teams, who have a mental block about playing there.

Ackermann has had good and bad news on the injury front. Sergeal Petersen badly injured his shoulder in the Munster game, but Cheswill Jooste will return from injury for the semi-final.

“Cheswill is almost ready, so hopefully by Monday he can train with us and be an option, especially now with Sergeal out,” Ackermann said. “That has been one area where we’ve just scraped through the whole season. If one winger is out, another one goes down.”

Ackermann was pleased with his team’s effort against Munster but unhappy with some of the sloppiness on attack.

“There were some silly offloads, and there were some great ones, so we have to cut out those silly ones because Glasgow are so clinical,” he said.

“They defend very well. They don’t make it easy for you, so our patience with the ball obviously has to improve.

“It sounds arrogant because of the score, but we have to perform even better because Glasgow will punish us if we make the same mistakes. They’re just an all-round highly skilled attacking team.”