Do Johan Ackermann's Bulls Signings Add Up? | Jan de Koning

Welcome back to the Rugby Rundown, a weekly news show with Jan de Koenig. And Jan, the Bulls finally confirmed the news of seven new signings, or eight I think. Most importantly of them, Kervin Bosch and you and I had a raise an eyebrow two a month ago when we first heard about this. What's your take on that? Well, the fact that we knew that it was most likely going to happen, so I can't say I'm surprised maybe puzzled still but also then again you know I mean there's such great examples and I think the one thing I want to touch and I'll get to that now is the reason why I think this might just be a good thing for the Bulls and why it's not such a bad thing you mentioned that he you know Bath wanted him so that already tells you that it's not just the Bulls that saw something in him and we know his problems he had at the Sharks He dropped down in a pecking order and he didn't feel comfortable with fullback.

And now suddenly he comes back and his fullback can fly off. But I think the example I want to use is Percy Montgomery. Percy Montgomery was just as vilified when he was in South Africa. And he was already a Springbok, but he's one of those players that people love to hate. And then Percy went away, played for Newport.

and he came back a far more mature player and he became South Africa's biggest point scorer of all time. So he came back a different player. And sometimes these players, he's got obvious talent. I mean, we know they've got talent. They're just not living up to their promise or their earliest promise.

And I think this could be another case. I don't want to say he's the next Percy Montgomery, but I think this could be a classic case of a player that had to go away, go learn something from other coaches play in a different competition, experience a different culture and now come back now he might just be that classic player and I think the Bulls, we all know that Vili is not going to go on forever so Vili LaRue is going to be by the way we must speak about Vili LaRue just now as well but Vili LaRue is going to go away so you need somebody for that utility fullback playmaker role so I think this could be a very astute signing by the Bulls that's interesting because Bath has Finn Russell as the first choice and we have the Bulls I mean have Andre Pollard and both of these teams looking for a backup call of that someone who can play when Andre or Finn is not available for the international duty for whatever reason and Kirwan seems to be the one that they want to press the button on the question about Kirwan's always been his defence he was always seen to be a little light on defence in the 10th channel do you think that might have improved he looks to me at some of the pictures I saw like he might have bulked up a little bit maybe I don't know, it's difficult to say at a distance but do you think the defence might have been sorted over there because that French league is tough We will only know once he gets back but there's ways to manage that I mean we know that Ville has still got his detractors and people will tell you he can't tackle That's irrelevant, it's what else he brings and a good coach, and I think Akkerman is that type of coach a good coach will find a way and there's a litany of examples of really good fly halves that could hide away, that good coaches could hide them away on the fence. You know, he's put a flank in that channel when the opposition's got the ball. And they won't run at that channel. He can go cover at fullback.

So there's lots of ways of masking that. And I don't mean that in a derogatory sense. I mean in a good way that he can mask his deficiencies and then utilize his greatness in other ways. Yeah. Now the question you just mentioned, that he wasn't happy playing 15.

The Bulls have a problem at 15. David Krillers left. Billy Leroux, like you said, is coming to the end of his career. Devin Williams seems to be out of favour slightly. I don't know.

I think there's a couple of question marks about his defence, come to think of it. We saw Kirtley Arends playing full-back this past weekend. Isn't there a danger of Kirwan ending up at 15 again, like Butow ended up at 15 several times for the little bit, you know, short period of time that he played for the Bulls? Isn't that another risk maybe because there's a problem there? Yeah, I think, and it's my opinion, I mean, I haven't had the privilege of sitting down with Johan Akamani to ask him directly about this, but I would think that that utility role that can play fly-off, that can play full-back, that can play wing, but can come in in a creative role.

So a good coach, again, and I'm going to say this repeatedly and people will get ad nauseum, will get tired of me, but a good coach will find a way of working with that player and making him understand that his value is not necessary in just playing fly, even if he prefers to play fly. He can be a good player and coming in the first receiver role when the game is flowing. You don't have to do from static ball. You don't have to do it from... And the other thing that we have to mention is that Kerwin has a decent boot on him, a pretty decent boot.

and you mentioned a couple of the other guys and that left boot is invaluable in certain conditions so I think there are enough good that I can see in him that will tell me that there's a reason why Johan Ackerman picked him and Johan will give him a few hugs and he will feel much better about playing at fullback sorry, yeah that's a good one okay, so the other option at fullback it's obviously going to be Taki Abrams that they've now signed. He's at wing and at fullback. A lacquer back, as we call them, a scrum cap wearing hip, swiveling hip kind of a thing, small guy. He also went overseas, played in France and then played at Munster. Didn't get that many opportunities at Munster, but, you know, did he learn something over there?

What's the benefit of signing him, do you think? I think what I saw of him in France is that he's attacking. And again, there's another player where people say, oh, maybe his defence is not so lacquer. It's fine. You know, again, and I'll say this again and again, a good coach will find a way of dealing with that.

Maybe they send him to tackle school every week, or whatever he does with the guy, he will find a way of fixing whatever shortcomings you can go look at players under Akkerman at the Lions. They were discarded. Harold Foster was thrown away from the Bulls, went to the Lions, and he became a really good centre, one of the best. I don't want to go too much into the past, but But Ioana's got a habit in a way of dealing with these things. So I would say Takir as well.

I think Munster probably is the playing style. Maybe he didn't suit. You know, they like big bruising players. They like their wings to be 6'6 and 200 kilos and running. You know, they want Jonah Lomas on the wing.

They don't want Cheson Colbys and Takir Abrahams on the wing. So I think that's probably why he didn't get as much game time. On Friday, when I was there for the team announcement, I was talking to Jan outside, and I said, I saw that morning on social media somewhere a screenshot of the team for 2017, the Lions team. I mean, the names in there, Franco Mostert, Kwacha Smit, Malcolm Marks. I mean, if you look at it back now, where those players went and what they became, let's give credit where credit is due.

Jan knows how to put a team together. I mean, this is actually, regardless of what the booboo supporters say, this is a good omen, I think. I have a good feeling about what's happening Johan a good coach and I hope people get the context here a good coach is a good manager or a good manager is a good coach you need to be a player management a man management type of person and I know Jake White and I don't think he will take offense but Jake White was sometimes a bit old school too old school and too rough for the modern players. I mean, I remember, and now I'm going to go really far back, I remember Alex Wiley coaching at Transvaal. And even those guys from Joba couldn't handle that.

They don't like a coach to arrive and immediately at the field and start swearing at them. So those days are gone So you deal with dealing with a modern player where you need to be a bit more careful about how you treat these people on and off the field And I think Akerman knows exactly what he doing You know, we all know him as a really hard, tough lock and a good Springbok lock and a really good player at the Bulls. But I just think as a personality, you know, and I think maybe, sorry if I don't want to put religion into them but Johan is based in Christianity and and I've liked the way that he was open about it and to me that says he's got a sound foundation in where he works from and once you've got that if you understand how to deal with people that personality that you speak with the type of person that he is when he then speaks to you one-on-one or he tells you something that you're doing wrong you will listen because he doesn't have to shout and swear at you he's going to look you in the eyes and tell you yan not again and you will know that he means business so i think that's that's the beauty that you're on akerman and look i mean maybe maybe i was privileged to set a few press conferences with him and i understand his personality but i just think his base is grounding us super and that's what makes him such a good main manager? You know, one of the people I look up to during my life, a guy like Richard Branson who always used to say that he's successful because he surrounded himself with people who are smarter than he is or better at certain things than he is. And I think Johan is a classic example of that.

Neil LeBron coming in has made a huge difference. Jean Tieter is an excellent defence coach. Werner Krier is an excellent scrum coach. The conditioning, everybody else, everybody around them, you can see that. And I saw for myself that Wika was with the Bulls.

How good a man manager, Johan Akerman actually is. I've seen the growth that Johan has undergone since he took the job. I saw him that first day and he was like a deer in the headlights. What happened? It was a big job and it was a bit overwhelming.

Now he's grown into it, now that he's found his feet. Look where the bulls are, potentially on track for a home semi-final if things go the way we want them to go. I agree with you. It's absolutely brilliant. Yeah, I mean, before we go on, I mean, here's Johan.

we talked about Johan and the players he's getting in and we touched earlier on Willi Leroux and we can't go not mentioning Willi on Saturday he will play his 400th first last game, that's insane if you think, and Willi is one of those players, just like Takira is going to have his detractors, it's like Kirwin Borses will be his detractors he's got a lot of detractors, but those are people I believe that don't understand the game You know, if you've watched Vili Lirui, I mean, I want to take you back to the 2019 World Cup final. That play that set up a Pimpies try. Yeah, the... Drifting, I mean, the play was going on on the right-hand side of the field. And suddenly you see Vili drifting.

It's like he's drifting away from the place. And the next minute the ball comes back and there is Vili setting up a play. And Anne kicked a grabber and collected it. and I mean, that grabber was a chip kick that went in and collected and offloaded to Mopimpi. And that set up was the vision that Vili had four or five seconds earlier while the play was going on.

Everybody else was seeing it. And something, I did an article earlier that went live today. His vision of reading, shifting the fences. That's the best phrase to use. His vision to read, shifting the fences.

The moment he did that, he knew where the space was going to be because he saw the defence move. And, you know, that beauty about that, reading the game. And I think people underestimate that. So, am I a Valeriu fan? Massive, massive fan.

But because of the sheer brazen talent. When I saw him first, I quoted Lofi, Eugene Illoff, who was a guy who found him in France. You know, he was looking for a fly-off at Borland. 2011, he was looking for a fly-off at Borland. there's a young guy in France that wants to come back to South Africa and then Eugene looked at a couple of videos of Willi and he said that's the guy I won he said to Willi, carte blanche you do what you do that season, 2011 Buran scored an average of 7 tries per match and in the final when they beat the EP Elephants I can't even remember if they were still called EP Elephants or EP Kings or whatever they were called back then a teammate Luke, Watson and players like that in they put more than 40 points past the EP team and scored 9 tries you know that was Verley at fly-off so people if people ever want to wonder why Verley can play fly-off he started out as a fly-off with great vision moved to fullback, played on the wing but that vision didn't leave him and he uses that vision that's why he can come into a first receiver role and create and sometimes do overlaps and do passes and do kicks.

They don't all come off. But more than often than not, in the big moments, they do come off. On that subject tonight, Paul Reuss is honouring Willi LaRue. We're also talking to Edgar Raffer later today. And he's going to attend that.

So I'm aware of it. So well done, Willi. I mean, what an exceptional player. Like you said, 400 matches is insane. I mean, we thought Dion Verri played a lot of matches.

Willi LaRue is even better. So even more. So yeah, that's what it is. So I'm going to put the link to your article on Rugby 365 down in the description if people want to go read it. So it's a very good article.

Thank you. Let's get back to the Bulls signings. They seem to have rated the Sharks a little bit. Quite a few of the Sharks players coming across. The most important one of those is a prop to replace Wilco Lowe.

I don't really know much about him. What do you know? Let me just find his name again because I cannot remember ever. But one day, Ndanda. Probably I'll remember in the future quite a bit more because I'm sure that they signed him of a reason.

What do you know about him? As much as you do. I actually saw his name and I had to go research. So it's one of those players. And I want to go back to what I said much earlier about Johan Akerman.

Here's a player who nobody knows much about. He's on the fringes. And Johan Akerman says, he's not getting enough game time. I like what that player's got. And we must remember he turned a number of props into spring box at the Lions.

he sees things in players that other people don't see and he can bring the best out of them. So if Johan Akerman likes that player, I think that's a good player. I think for me, the player that I know a bit more about but also very interesting is Guillemir. That's also a very interesting signing because now suddenly you've got another playmaker in the mix. That's why I think that going forward, when Andre Polov's not available and Villiers decided to move on and finally, you know, when he's played 500 games somewhere, I don't know, maybe he comes back to Borland to finish his career at Borland.

But that's a joke. So once that happens, you've got really good players like Bosch and Guillemir that can fill that gap at domestic level or URC level, especially those early season games when you need some really good creative players. And when you play in Pretoria in December on a Saturday afternoon at 3 o'clock and it's 35 degrees, You need a player like that that understands it and can run and mesmerise the opposition. So I think it's some very astute signings. Some teams, and I don't mean to disparage the Sharks here, but when they took over, when the new owners, American owners took over, they went for high profile.

They've now admitted that maybe that approach was not the best approach. Sometimes those high-profile players don't work for you because they're just never available. And when they're available, they're injured. So, like, you look at Ivan Ezevedi. What a wonderful player.

What a great ambassador for the game and for South African rugby and Springbok rugby. You know, the most capped Springbok of all time. Double World Cup winner. I mean, you can say everything you like. One thing is when he was at the Stormers, he played more for the Springboks than he played for the Stormers.

Now at the Sharks, he's playing more for the Springboks than he playing at the Stormers At the Sharks And that because he gives so much for the Springboks and for the africa for his country that he carries some of that bruising and battered body into his domestic and then that when he doesn't get enough time because now he's playing 12 months a year and even though they say he's supposed to have this six that six weeks or eight weeks in february and march is not enough because he first of all he's going to rest for three weeks proper rest before and then he can start with a gym work so by the time he gets back he still hasn't built up all the recovery so and that's a problem with with a lot of spring marks so to get back to you on akerman that's why it's an institute sign because these are players that play for him and he can build him up during the times when these spring marks are not available yeah that's an important point um they are spring rock quality almost quite not quite there maybe not there yet or they have been there like andre liebenberg but they will be available that's the most important thing then they will there was they would stay available you don't have to like we said last year johan joined in what was it june and he only met his springbox for the first time somewhere in november i think if i remember correctly i mean that's ridiculous it's ridiculous asking the question at the press conference you know what is it like finally having all your spring box here i remember that was the first ironically the first day that they were right that loved us and he said yeah i finally could could say hello to them and shake their hands you know yeah that's the sad reality of it so so that puts it into context you know so i mean the the another classic example is myself could see it you know he was there already when you on arrive but you you talk about arno you know i mean you know that arno is going to be available sorry i'm talking about uh apologies so i know you know is going to be available in all those games so you've got all that experience around those young guys so and Marcel maybe maybe things didn't always work out in the beginning early stages but eventually they settled down and now that uh Johan has had these players and he's learned a bit more about Marcel now they're a good combination you know and that's what you do i mean i i know that i was critical of johan when uh why he didn't uh why picked uh marcel as his captain you know when you already had a club captain we spoke about it and the reality was the same another classic example was we had um 1995 team strass we had team strass he was probably the best number eight in the country and we had franzo pino who's going to be the springboard captain and Kits Christy admittedly said, I had to choose between my captain or Tian, you know, there would be a conflict in the team if I picked Tian, that doesn't make Tian a bad person, it doesn't make, Kits selected who he thought was going to be the best for the team, or what was going to be the best for the team, and that's what he selected, and that's what served him well, you know, we won the World Cup, you can argue all you like about Tian Strassen, and I do believe he was the best number eight at the time, but unfortunately, Kits fell that wasn't going to suit the team. He needed a Francois Pinot to win the World Cup and that's what he got. Yeah, and four years later, Thijon Strauss won the World Cup with Australia with the worst Australian accent ever. Anyway, that's a story for another day. Interestingly enough, what I really like about Andrew Liebenberg is he took absolutely no nonsense from our little friend Henry Pollock this weekend and that little white fringe of his, I really enjoyed that little interaction.

Thank you, Andrew. we all wanted to do that. Even Dwayne from really wanted to make a comeback to rugby just to go sort this little guy out. What did you see there? Yeah, because he is a bit...

Look, I mean I've seen that. Let's talk about Pollo. The chap's obviously got very good talent. He's got enormous talent. But he's believing his own hype at the moment.

You know, people like the fact that he was celebrating. And yes, I know it's a new era. People like, you know, soccer celebrations and, you know, the pressure and whatever gestures you want to show. So maybe I'm old school, you know, and I'm never going to change, you know. I just don't like that sort of wild celebrations.

I remember just, and I don't want to go off the topic. I'll come back to it, Paula, now. When the Stormers has played, I think they played the Bulls at Newlands. They were still at Newlands. and one of the centers intercepted the ball and ran through and scored.

And the next minute he did some really fancy, I think it's the Macarena or some dance behind the poles, some really fancy dance. And everybody jumped and celebrated. It was a great try. And Dobson said afterwards, when I saw the dance, I knew we were going to lose this game because you could see the attitude of the players. Now, coming back to Pollard, he's clearly a very talented player.

and he's got a personality and you want personalities you don't want robots in the game you do want personalities but there's a limit to what you can do and and at the weekend the exact incident that you talked about is you know the the whistle of blow and then he still start pushing players forward and then run around and like gesture and and the scrum off even the scum off bumped and he pushed the scrum off and then suddenly it was all on you know and and they wanted to i'll i'll promise you if there wasn't 600 cameras on the ground uh that would have been a rack immediate rack and and uh pollard would have picked uh got up with a bloody nose or something pollock yeah john pollock absolutely just so people don't get confused we're not talking about the blonde head that's not a springbok and never will be a springbok thank goodness for that i'm I'm like you. I'm old school. I don't like that kind of attitude, that cockiness. It's going to get beaten out of him one day soon, I'm sure, where we can't see it under the dark, where it's really dark, right under there. Anyway, let's just finish talking about the rest of the signings.

Hakim Kunene, another fullback, Dylan Maart. Storm has, I know, tried very hard. I know what the Bulls had to do to get him, and it's not as much. We definitely didn't offer him double. I know that for a fact.

And then at this Puma Center, Zangbu Gamlashi. I don't know anything about him. I think it's an outside centre. But I'm more worried about the number 12 position, the inside centre. Jan Savantain, you know, retired two years prematurely, two years before the expiry of his contract.

Anything about the plans for the Bulls there that you know of? I mean, I expected something more, maybe, in terms of signings. That seems to me to be a bit of a problem. Well, as far as I know, Herod Forster's not going anywhere. He's not going to go play for the Springboks, so he's available.

Yeah, but he's one guy. So, no. I know, no, I'm joking. I think from last and I'm talking under correction please correct me if I'm wrong but didn't he play for Griequois first and then went to the Cheetahs I have no idea he plays for Pumas now yeah yeah that's right and then he went from Cheetahs to the Pumas or maybe just Cheetahs and Pumas but that's what happened with a lot of those players you know they go to Jimmy and Nelsprayton and they get really good game time they get good exposure and then the people can see their quantities because you remember at some states they will play Curry Cup against these big teams, you know, and you will see them against quality players and then you can see, okay, this guy's got some qualities. I can work with him.

So, yeah, who knows? And knowing Akkerman, he might be the player that he turns into an inside centre. He might have the qualities that second playmaker at inside centre. I bumped into Stedman Ganssen Friday as well at Loftus and I started talking to him about, you know, does he prefer 12 or 13? He says he doesn't care.

He loves both positions. He'll play in both of those positions. even though he is an inside centre or outside centre, I can't remember which one but he loves either, he just wants to play that's the biggest thing and the Bulls are under a couple of other players Dimitri Rasmus for example, I had a chat with him as well I've spoken to Gigan Johannes he played fly off again for the under 23s so there's a the pantry is actually quite full quite exciting Gertley Arons are leaving and the likes, yeah there is a bit of an exodus but good replacements coming in I'm happy with the place the Bulls are at your overall impression, do you think? Yeah, no, no. I think it's good signings.

I think it a good indication as to where they heading There enough young talent coming through They signing enough young players and some senior players And that always that balance of getting one or two senior players that can guide these youngsters. That's got experience of having played overseas. That's where Kirwan Bosch could be really valuable. You know, he could be the Villain-LaRue mentor type role. You know, he can really give these young players some advice that will help them down the line.

so I mean I remember just to get to your point about the under 23s you know I know that I did an article about whether the Lions are maybe doing Peter disservice and opening the door for somebody because I know that the Stormers are interested in him and I know that the Sharks are interested in him but he's still got another contract a year on his contract but if he's not playing for the URC team he might get frustrated and when a good offer comes he might say listen you know I don't want to be here anymore and you know you can only hold the players uh onto a player for so long if he eventually gonna lose him you might as well let him go so yeah I know that the Lions took him on tour but he still hasn't seen any game time so he's still sitting in the stands with the you know he hasn't even got a tracksuit on he said to the blazer in the stand you know the there will be a level of frustration but if he plays under 23 at least he's getting game time and he's he's staying active and That's the big challenge. And that's what is good about the Under-23. Unfortunately, there's only the final left. But I think some players got some extra game time during the latter stages of the UFC. All right.

Okay, enough about the Bulls. Now, I want to talk about the Cheetos a little bit. But before we do that, just remember, Jan's got his own channel, Rugby Unfiltered. You can see it there behind him, Loud and Proud. Make sure I'll put the link down at the bottom.

We also have a collab. You can click on it. Go subscribe to his channel. Follow his podcast with Loeffer Eilof that he referred to earlier. Also, if you want to make sure that you don't miss any of our episodes, sign up to our WhatsApp channel.

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We appreciate it. Tatitas managed to pull this one out of the fire, qualify for the curry cup, but that was touch and go there for a bit. it's quite sad it's both funny and quite sad that their future the future of a lot of players and even the coaching staff hinged on a conversion kick a missed conversion kick because if that conversion kick went over the cheaters would have been out of the curry cup and who knows what happened and farstein admitted it on more than one occasion that if they don't qualify for the curry cup they have no guarantee that they will have a job the next day so miss conversion and now they're playing in the semi-finals of the sa cup and they've qualified for the curry cup so they can start building again there's a bit of hope but we know it's tough in bloomfontein i mean the economy in general is is in the dumps uh and bloomfontein hasn't got the biggest economy they've got a good support rural support base uh farmers and that sort of stuff and there's some businessmen somebody asked me the other day if i still know whether the trotskis are butroski and he's you know whether they still supported tutors and i don't think they're alive anymore no they're not yeah that's not something to laugh about but it does but that's been a while yeah yeah so so you know people want to know where are they why that's the reality is that those kind of supporters that made sure that the benefactors is a better name the benefactors that made sure that tutors had money in the bank uh they're no longer there so that's why recently they had to go and reach into the or beg from the you know it's almost like having those car boards at the robots you know go you're staying at the robot to the cardboard i need to support my kids you know i've got four a wife and four kids or 10 wives and 100 kids or whatever uh please i need some money and that's what they did they got 10 separate companies that uh bailed them out so hopefully now they can get get body support they've got and hopefully the i don't know if the urc thing is going to materialize because i mean we also got that uh black lion from georgia that's put their hands up for for a possible urc place and we know there's a english club it's a team that's interested in joining the urc although that might be stretched too far i'm not sure if it's wise to take a second division English club into the URC. We might go the way of where we had the Sunwolves in Japan. Everybody has to trip out there to Japan every now and then to go play a game.

It just becomes too cumbersome. But yeah, hopefully the Cheetos get a look in either Super Rugby or URC and they finally get to build a proper future. I know that I won't be popular at SR Rugby, but they really treated the cheaters like the stepchild you know the the bad stepchild and and cheaters got done in on more because the cheaters were the ones that opened started opening a door by going to play in the pro 14. you know they did a lot of work there uh and then srp stepped in and sorted uh you know sorted everything out and and now we're in the urc and it's a the european competition so i just felt or still feel that maybe we owe the cheetahs a big debt gratitude and definitely some assistance to make sure they don't disappear because they were on the brink or they are on the brink of disappearing if if they don't improve you know and they keep losing plus because they just don't have the money there's no there's no finances in bloomfontein that can compete even i mean when kimberly and nelsprate has bigger budgets than than then Bloomfontein, then you know there's a problem. Yeah, I know.

I hear you. Okay. Right, let's talk about the All Blacks quickly. The greatest rivalry to the end of the year, or later this year. I mean, it's building up to it.

And Dave Henney had been appointed. That's a big thing. I think it's a bad thing for South Africa, because he knows how to beat us. We talked about this before. He beat us with the Australians.

I mean, really, you know, even with Snorgate, when Faftekler touched, what's his name's mustache there? Nick White's mustache. Yeah, but the point is, Dave Henney is the one guy we didn't want the All Blacks coach to be. and he is now so that's probably now is he graham and he's going to be involved there as well as a selector that's an interesting thing i don't even know they have selectors anymore how does that work i mean that's that's actually uh you know i think yeah i i think uh they've always had selectors but i think those selectors are more like uh advisors you know i mean you know they will sit around with him and he'll say this is why i want this player these players and maybe they they have an influence i don't i'm not exactly quite sure because i mean we know probably to do their board But I know that they've always had selectors. It's one thing we, until a few years ago, until Rasi came back and took over, we also had a selection panel for the Springboks.

I think under Alistair we still had a selection. I think Piri Jooste was still head of the selection panel in some form or another. So, yeah, so it's very interesting. I think Graeme Henry will do more than just selecting a few teams. teams.

He might be standing on the sideline casting an eagle eye over the All Blacks and maybe whispering in a few ears because he's been around the block a few times. He won the World Cup, make no mistake. I mean, like you said, he knows how to do things. I'm excited. I can't wait for this All Black Tour to start.

I mean, it's going to probably be the highlight apart from the World Cup next year, but the highlight of the rugby season and it's going to be every four years. Can't wait for that. So yeah, anyway, Jan, we've talked about the Bulls mostly but we've run out of time. So thank you for making time for me. I appreciate it as always and we had a bit of a couple of things happening in our lives that put a pay to some episodes in the recent past but all sorted out now.

All settled in and back to normal. Absolutely. Yeah and it's always a pleasure Emia. I love chatting rugby and yeah let's keep going and let's keep going. Thank you.

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