Bulls Director of Rugby Jake White. Photo: Shaun Roy/Backpagepix
Bulls boss calls out the booing bunch at Loftus: I don’t understand
Bulls boss Jake White has publicly denounced the members of the Loftus crowd who booed Saracens star Owen Farrell.
Bulls Director of Rugby Jake White. Photo: Shaun Roy/Backpagepix
There was a lot to celebrate following the Bulls’ 27-16 win over Saracens in their Champions Cup opener at Loftus Versfeld, but one of the notable feature of the match was the incessant booing of Owen Farrell.
Farrell, who captains both England and Saracens, was jeered after almost every action by the 15 517 fans who attended the game in Pretoria.
It comes not long after Farrell confirmed he was taking an indefinite break from international rugby in order to prioritise his mental health.
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Bulls boss not pleased with crowd behaviour
“I apologise for the booing Owen Farrell received. That’s not what we’re about,” White said after the game.
“I don’t understand why it happens and why people have jumped on the bandwagon in terms of the negative media. I don’t understand why… I said in the week that he’s an unbelievable player and what he’s achieved in England is phenomenal.
“I’m really disappointed because I wanted the people to enjoy seeing him play at Loftus Versfeld. You equate that to watching Tiger Woods play golf or Michael Jordan play basketball. I apologise and it’s not really who we are. We will address that.”
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Saracens director of rugby Mark McCall didn’t want to talk about the booing of Farrell.
“I’ve got nothing to say about that,” McCall said before exiting the short press conference.
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Result at least pleasing
Meanwhile, in terms of the result, White was chuffed with how his team played.
“I’m happy to have beaten a team of Saracens’ stature. It’s quite ironic that people say we should’ve put them away and given them 50 points,” White said.
“You don’t become a team like Saracens overnight where when you’re 20 points up, they give you the bonus point.
“We were happy with how we started because that created momentum for us because we knew it was going to go to the wire … because they’re a championship team.”
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