Bulls Currie Cup Squad 2026: Embracing the Chaos

There are coaches who spend the week before a season obsessing over lineout calls, defensive systems and selection headaches. Phiwe Nomlomo is doing all of that. The difference is that he seems to be genuinely enjoying it, which tells you quite a lot about the man and quite a lot about the Bulls Currie Cup squad 2026 he has assembled.

Nomlomo is staring down a campaign packed with uncertainty: a squad sheet full of unfamiliar names, a fixture list designed by someone clearly fond of frequent-flyer miles, and the inevitable player movement that comes with sharing resources across a franchise competing on multiple fronts. Somehow, he sounds delighted by all of it.

If there's a guiding philosophy behind his approach, it's simple: embrace the unknown. Get comfortable in the chaos. Figure it out on the run. It is, handily, also his entire game plan for the Carling Currie Cup.

Ask Nomlomo about his squad and the first thing he'll tell you, cheerfully, is that half the names on the team sheet are unlikely to be recognised by supporters. Between club stalwarts, promising juniors and a sprinkling of senior capped players, this is a group still introducing itself to itself. He's unbothered. "It's an exciting squad," he insists. "Really, really exciting. I think we're going to play a good brand of rugby." Whether that's coach-speak or genuine conviction, you sense he actually believes it — mostly because he's had no choice but to believe it for months.

The draw has given him very little room to ease in gently. Three consecutive away games open the campaign: Sanlam Boland Kavaliers, then Suzuki Griquas, then a Fidelity ADT Lions side that has contested the last two Carling Currie Cup finals. Three away trips to start a season is the rugby equivalent of trying to assemble flat-pack furniture with half the instructions missing. You don't get to choose the circumstances. You just get on with it.

Bulls supporters will remember last season's version of this story rather too well. The team started like a runaway train, and Nomlomo was asked during one press conference whether the competition was already effectively won. He said no — smartly and correctly, as it turned out. The wheels came loose not long afterwards.

So what's changed for round two? Mostly, honesty about the inevitable. Nomlomo and Vodacom Bulls Director of Rugby Johan Ackermann have had, in his words, "some really good meetings" about exactly when the squad might be stretched by call-ups, injuries and scheduling conflicts. One particularly awkward quirk in the calendar sees the Springboks taking on the All Blacks on 15 August, with the Vodacom Bulls XV hosting the Toyota Cheetahs just a day later. Somebody, somewhere, is always going to be needed in two places at once. "It's all hands on deck," he shrugs, "and that's why there are a few names in this squad that people might not recognise."

I've been around enough professional environments to know that the franchises who handle squad rotation best are the ones who stop resenting it and start planning for it. Rival sides like Griquas will enjoy the luxury of settled combinations and established rhythm. The Bulls Currie Cup squad 2026, by contrast, may spend much of the tournament figuring out exactly who is walking through the door each week. Rather than resist that reality, Nomlomo has decided to lean all the way into it.

"We're comfortable with things not always going exactly to plan," he says, "and that's actually what we need, because it's the same in a match. When the game plan doesn't quite go the way you want, how do you adjust?" It's either the most Zen thing a rugby coach has said all year, or an extremely elegant way of saying: we have no idea who's available in week three, so let's enjoy the ride. Possibly both.

That same "control the chaos" mantra extends to his vision for how the team will play: end-to-end, attacking rugby, players given licence to show what they can do, with just enough structure underneath to stop everything descending into mayhem. "There's a plan within the chaos," he says. "You control the chaos. Find yourself within it, and be comfortable there."

His own personal transformation has been rather more visible. The dreadlocks are gone. After years with the hairstyle, Nomlomo quietly decided it was time for a change. "There isn't a massive story behind it," he says. "It had just run its course, and I felt it was time, so off it went." Like much of his approach to coaching, there is something refreshingly uncomplicated about the decision. No grand reinvention. Just a recognition that sometimes it's time to turn the page.

If you want to understand how he thinks about building a squad capable of handling constant upheaval, it helps to know how he spends his time away from the training field. He describes himself as a curious person — not narrowly curious about rugby, either. He'll wander into a third-division club while overseas, not because of the standard of play but because useful insights often come from unexpected places. Conversations with people from the NFL and AFL have produced ideas he has taken back home. A friend recently convinced him to spend his downtime learning to make pasta from scratch. Not because he's chasing culinary greatness. Because throwing yourself into unfamiliar situations often enough means you never quite know what you'll bring back. It's a fitting philosophy for a coach leading a Carling Currie Cup campaign built on shifting sand.

Before the serious business begins, there is one final stop: a warm-up fixture away in Namibia this weekend against what's being billed as a Namibia XV. Nomlomo isn't expecting an easy evening — "a darn strong side" is his assessment — but the result matters less than what he's actually after. More important than the scoreboard is getting a group of relative strangers out of Loftus and into each other's company. Some have trained alongside one another for months without really knowing each other. Namibia, in his mind, is less a rugby trip than a team-building exercise that happens to include a match.

"What we really want," he says, "is to come back as a brotherhood."

A captain has not yet been named, though Nomlomo admits the coaches already have a strong idea of who it might be. Don't expect that particular mystery to stay unsolved for much longer. Once it's resolved, the Bulls Currie Cup squad 2026 will have its figurehead — and a team that has spent months assembling in the background will finally step into the light.

Phiwe Nomlomo doesn't sound like somebody worried about the uncertainty that lies ahead. He sounds like somebody who has already decided that uncertainty is where the interesting stuff happens. Over the next few months, with away trips, new combinations and more than a little unpredictability, he'll find out if he's right. If his team adopts the same attitude, the ride should be well worth watching.

VODACOM BULLS XV CARLING CURRIE CUP SQUAD

Forwards: Abri van der Westhuysen, Abongile Nonkotwana, Arnu Gustafson, Cephas van Biljon, Chinedu Amadi, Damian Baker, Dian Coetzee, Dieter Schubert, Dylan Smith, Jon Hobson, Esethu Mnebelele, Heinrich Theron, Jaundre Schoeman, Jean Erasmus, JJ Theron, Jonathan Eloff, Junior Pokomela, KB Maake, Mawande Mdanda, Migael Turner, Nama Xaba, Nicolaas Janse van Rensburg, Oelof de Meyer, Ranon Fourie, Sandisiwe Msengana, Sintu Manjezi, Ulrich van der Westhuizen.
Backs: Aka Boqwana, Brooklyn Newman, Christiaan Viok, Christan Vorster, Daniel van der Merwe, Hakeem Kunene, Hendre Schoeman, JJ Motlhodi, Ian van der Merwe, Lindsey Jansen, Marnus Rademeyer, Neil le Roux, PA van Niekerk, Pieter van der Merwe, Riwan van Aswegen, Riyaad Bam, Ruan Enslin, Ruben Groenewald, Unathi Mlotshwa, Viaan Mentoor, Melt Viljoen, Demitre Erasmus, Devon Williams, Keagan Johannes, Shaun Schümann, Thomas Beling.