KEY POINTS:
There's an old joke which stems from the days when the Bulls were called Northern Transvaal and they played a kicking first five-eighths called Naas Botha.
The story goes that Botha got onto a plane for a flight to a game and politely introduced himself to the guy
sitting next to him. "I know who you are," came the reply, "I'm your second five-eighths."
It was a bit like that in the Bulls' match against the Crusaders yesterday - the ball rarely got beyond first five-eighths Derick Hougaard who kicked the shine off it.
Then, when the Bulls were 37 points down and figured they had to do something, they got all frothy and tried to play tap and go all the time and succeeded only in making themselves look like a team that can't attack.
After two weeks of the new rules, I think it is now clear that there will be a big split in this year's Super 14 between those sides who have planned well for the new season and those who haven't.
Last week, it was clear in the game between the Waratahs and the Hurricanes that neither had really got their heads around the new rules. The Chiefs also played the new rules poorly, I thought, and just didn't use them to their advantage - preferring to play tap and go all the time rather than try to work the rules appropriately.
You saw an example of what I am talking about in the Crusaders against the Bulls yesterday. All right, the Bulls are not the big forward unit they once were - I think the Crusaders pack actually outweighed them by a few kilos.
But size isn't all that important in this competition, under these rules. It's still important to keep the ball, sure, but it is also about speed of thought, pass and foot when you are using the ball to take advantage of the extra space the new rules are creating at the moment.
You could see that Robbie Deans and the Crusaders had thought carefully about selection and execution. I'm not sure you could say the same about the Bulls.
Take Brad Thorn as an example. When he arrived back in Christchurch, he had lost a lot of weight playing league for the Broncos. He thought he'd have to put it all back on but Robbie told him to stay as he was. You saw the results yesterday - his defence was enormous, he got through a ton of work in the collision phases and he was on the field, flat tack, for the whole 80min. So was Ali Williams.
All right, maybe the Bulls' attack - if we can call it that - didn't put them under a great deal of extra defensive pressure but the Canterbury forwards (Greg Somerville was another) showed mobility and endurance while the Bulls forwards fell away.
It was also a case of being smart and using the appropriate laws at the appropriate moment. Like scrums. Everyone thought scrums would disappear out of the game with the new rules - but look how many scrums there were and how many the Crusaders called.
With that 5m space for the backline to work in, the scrum becomes a potent attacking platform. It also allows you to slow down the game when you want and to work on different sides in different ways.
The Crusaders knew it would tell on the Bulls if they outscrummed them, so they did.
You compare that with the Hurricanes, for example. Too many errors, too much pushing of passes and flicking passes back from bad positions against the Reds.
It's still too early to say which of the sides are using the new rules best but you can certainly place the Crusaders and maybe the Blues there.
