Bulls boss Jake White has suggested that highly rated youngster Canan Moodie is overweight and not in shape after their win over Connacht.
The 22-year-old is considered one of the world’s brightest talents after bursting onto the scene as a teenager, but he has struggled with injury recently.
Moodie has only featured twice for the Springboks this year, but he has played for the Pretoria outfit in all six of their United Rugby Championship matches so far.
Their most recent encounter came in Galway on Saturday as the Bulls overcame the Irishmen 28-14, with the wing scoring one of their tries.
Away with the Springboks
He had spent the past few weeks with South Africa for the Autumn Nations Series, where he appeared once against Scotland, but White evidently felt that he returned out of shape.
The Bulls head honcho certainly did not appear to be joking when he broached the subject with a straight face.
“He looked at times like he had eaten too much food at the buffet while he was on tour for the last month. I said that to him. I think he is going to have to start staying away from the buffet,” he said.
“When he got away a couple of times, I thought he would finish but as I said, I think we will have to keep him away from the buffet for a while.”
White was much happier with other aspects of the Bulls’ display as they sealed their fifth victory of the season by getting past Connacht.
The head coach was pleased with how they played in the opening period as the Pretoria-based team went into the break leading 14-0.
They then added two more tries in the third quarter through David Kriel and the aforementioned Moodie, but the visitors lost their way after that.
Mpilo Gumede was red carded and Connacht responded with two tries, much to the frustration of White.
Set-piece woes
In particular, the former Springboks boss was unhappy with how the lineout fell apart and singled out another youngster, JF van Heerden, for it going wrong.
“I’m very happy, especially the first half; we had 12 lineouts and lost one, and that’s considering we’ve got no Reinhardt Ludwig and Ruan Nortje,” he said.
“Got a bit sloppy in the end but I guess that’s what happens, a little bit of fatigue and a little bit of experience to understand that we needed to change things up a bit.
“A guy like JF van Heerden is relatively young still in terms of calling lineouts; he’ll have to learn from that performance.”
