{"id":393105,"date":"2026-01-05T12:38:07","date_gmt":"2026-01-05T12:38:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/393105\/"},"modified":"2026-01-05T12:38:07","modified_gmt":"2026-01-05T12:38:07","slug":"ailing-bulls-will-go-full-out-in-european-champions-cup","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/393105\/","title":{"rendered":"Ailing Bulls will go full out in European Champions Cup"},"content":{"rendered":"<p data-testid=\"wcl-news-perex\" itemprop=\"description\">Bulls coach Johan Ackermann says he will not be resting players for the team\u2019s final two European Champions Cup clashes as they seek to end a six-game losing streak that has gripped the team in a crisis of form.<\/p>\n<p>The <a href=\"https:\/\/www.flashscore.com\/team\/blue-bulls\/4IATkU2g\/\" data-analytics-element=\"ARTICLE_TEXT_LINK\" data-analytics-alias=\"internal\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Bulls<\/a> host English side <a href=\"https:\/\/www.flashscore.com\/team\/bristol-bears\/zT3oGRz1\/\" data-analytics-element=\"ARTICLE_TEXT_LINK\" data-analytics-alias=\"internal\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Bristol Bears<\/a> in Pretoria on Saturday before a trip to French side <a href=\"https:\/\/www.flashscore.com\/team\/section-paloise\/G2QYSuX3\/\" data-analytics-element=\"ARTICLE_TEXT_LINK\" data-analytics-alias=\"internal\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Pau<\/a> on January 16.<\/p>\n<p>Both will be considerable challenges, bit Ackerman\u2019s side at least showed plenty of fight in their narrows 13-8 loss to the Stormers in the United Rugby Championship this past Saturday.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>They need the victories too after losing their first two games in the Champions Cup to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.flashscore.com\/team\/bordeaux-begles\/hzHredXK\/\" data-analytics-element=\"ARTICLE_TEXT_LINK\" data-analytics-alias=\"internal\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Bordeaux<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.flashscore.com\/team\/northampton-saints\/K8qoX6zl\/\" data-analytics-element=\"ARTICLE_TEXT_LINK\" data-analytics-alias=\"internal\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Northampton Saints<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe\u2019re going full out with the strongest possible team for the next two games,\u201d Ackermann said. \u201cIf we lose, we\u2019re out. If we win, we\u2019re in the playoffs).\u00a0This next block is about getting everyone on the same page, building cohesion and turning our season around.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe just have to keep going at it. There are a lot of positives we could take out of the (Stormers) match and if we can replicate the performance and fix the mistakes, we can probably turn our season around.\u00a0How we played (in Cape Town) will definitely give us confidence heading into the European games.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe know it won\u2019t be easy. Every team is good; we saw the Lions and their result (against the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.flashscore.com\/team\/sharks\/YoW9lSnC\/\" data-analytics-element=\"ARTICLE_TEXT_LINK\" data-analytics-alias=\"internal\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Sharks<\/a>). We are going to try and get this group as tight as possible and play them together as much as we can.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The Bulls have somewhat controversially called in help from SA Rugby for their coaching group and will work with several members of the Springbok technical team to try and turn their fortunes around.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Bulls coach Johan Ackermann says he will not be resting players for the team\u2019s final two European Champions&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":393106,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[567],"tags":[64,63,760,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-393105","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-rugby","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-rugby","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/393105","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=393105"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/393105\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/393106"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=393105"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=393105"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=393105"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}