{"id":735656,"date":"2026-08-12T14:36:12","date_gmt":"2026-08-12T14:36:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/735656\/"},"modified":"2026-08-12T14:36:12","modified_gmt":"2026-08-12T14:36:12","slug":"bit-unfair-bulls-boss-johan-ackermanns-vow-before-all-blacks-clash","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/735656\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Bit unfair’: Bulls boss Johan Ackermann’s vow before All Blacks clash"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Published: 2 hours ago | 12 August 2026 07:43 EDT <\/p>\n

mens<\/p>\n

international<\/p>\n

Vodacom Bulls head coach Johan Ackermann before the United Rugby Championship grand final match between Leinster and Vodacom Bulls at Croke Park in Dublin. (Photo By David Fitzgerald\/Sportsfile via Getty Images) \"Google <\/a> <\/p>\n

Bulls<\/a> head coach Johan Ackermann has promised he will go as \u201cstrong as we can\u201d when naming his side to take on the All Blacks<\/a> at Loftus Versfeld on Saturday. <\/p>\n

Following a patchy 38-21 win over the Stormers<\/a> and an emphatic 54-0 win over the Sharks, Dave Rennie\u2019s side will take on the Bulls this weekend in the third match of their Greatest Rivalry tour and their final match before the first Test against the Springboks. <\/p>\n

Despite the United Rugby Championship<\/a> runners-up only recently returning for preseason, Ackermann has vowed that he will not take this match lightly when it comes to selection. <\/p>\n

With that said, he did stress that the squad will of course be without their Springbok contingent, while also flagging injuries to Akker van der Merwe and Sebastian de Klerk. Fans can nevertheless expect to see some of the Bulls\u2019 superstars on display such as Willie le Roux. <\/p>\n

Similarly, in their final hit-out before taking on the world champions at Ellis Park, Rennie will likely field what will be close to his preferred All Blacks XV. <\/p>\n

Fixture<\/p>\n

Rugby Union Hybrid Friendlies<\/p>\n

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Bulls <\/p>\n

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New Zealand <\/p>\n

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\u201cWe\u2019re going to go as strong as we can,\u201d Ackermann said when speaking to reporters this week. <\/p>\n

\u201cBarring the Springboks who aren\u2019t available and Akker van der Merwe, who is injured, and Sebastian de Klerk, who\u2019s injured, all the other names that are available will play. <\/p>\n

\u201cSo even the new guys who joined us \u2013 obviously there are a few guys that will still come like Luan Giliomee and Sango Xamlashe and Dylan Maart, but they\u2019re with their Currie Cup<\/a> teams and so on. But all the other names and the regulars like Harold Vorster and Stedman Gans will be out there.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ackermann also explained the complications and difficulties the squad have faced with the timing of this fixture. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe would probably only have just returned from the break,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe have to give the guys a five-week break, but we could only give them three weeks, otherwise you can imagine if we gave them five weeks they would only have started rugby last week. Physically, we just wouldn\u2019t be there. Conditioning is one thing, but your body after three weeks, four weeks, loses all of its contact ability. <\/p>\n

\u201cSo we had to fasttrack all of that. So if this game wasn\u2019t there, we would probably have been in a conditioning phase only. We wouldn\u2019t have touched much rugby and then would have started to only build up from the end of this month to the beginning of September. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt has put a bit of pressure on us, and the challenge is your preseason is the only time you\u2019ve got to play around with stuff. You normally play a warm-up match or two, and you trial stuff and you see if it works and you try to see which players are in form. Now, we are just picking on the squad that we\u2019ve got left, with the odd guys who are unlucky not to be selected. It is a bit unfair, but that\u2019s the hand we\u2019ve got.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Published: 2 hours ago | 12 August 2026 07:43 EDT mens international Vodacom Bulls head coach Johan Ackermann…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":735657,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[5903,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-735656","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-rugby","tag-rugby","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/735656","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=735656"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/735656\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/735657"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=735656"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=735656"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=735656"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}