Cheetahs mean business as they head to Loftus

The Cheetahs will travel to Pretoria not so much as partygoers but as poopers for Saturday’s Currie Cup clash against the Bulls.

Forwards coach Izak van der Westhuizen drove the point home that they are not focusing on the Bulls but are looking inward ahead of their game at Loftus Versfeld.

“We are not focused on their party. In fact, we are on our way there to try to spoil it. We will focus on the things we have to do,” Van der Westhuizen said.

But there is a huge incentive to finish the league stages of the Currie Cup with a flourish. Going into the last round, the Cheetahs on 46 log points trail the Sharks by two points and, though they are assured a home semifinal, they march to Pretoria with higher ambitions.

Victory over the Bulls leaves them an outside chance of topping the log and securing a home final, providing of course they win their semifinal. Should they win at Loftus they would have to await the result of the match between the Sharks and Western Province in Cape Town to see if they’ve done enough to claim top spot.

The Cheetahs face a tall order as the Bulls will have a full strength and rested squad available for the match. The visitors, however, will head there with a spring in their step. Their 29-14 away win over the Pumas, the defending champions, would have been a considerable confidence booster.

“Hopefully we can just build on the momentum we got from last weekend. That was definitely a positive for us going into this week,” said Van der Westhuizen.

The assistant coach hopes that win will also snap the Cheetahs’ capricious form over the last eight games in which they’ve lost four, won three and drawn one.

In mitigation though, they’ve had to chop and change in key positions with Reinhardt Fortuin, Ruan Pienaar, Siya Masuka and George Lourens all running out at flyhalf in that period.

“Changes in personnel always shifts the momentum a little bit,” said the assistant coach. “Maybe it makes you a bit unsure. As a group, we needed to sort things out attack-wise. With clarity came better execution last weekend.”

On that score, it also took the Cheetahs a while to iron out their attack after their exertions in Europe.

“Coming back from Europe we found everyone in the Currie Cup running around playing free for all ‘touchies’. Now we had to adapt because we wanted to play a similar game. We had to take a step back and looked at the things that worked for us,” Van der Westhuizen explained about their improved attack.

In their last meeting, the Cheetahs were comfortable 32-7 winners over the Bulls in Bloemfontein, but Saturday’s clash is likely to be a far more closely contested affair.