KEY POINTS:
It is the red rag from the Bulls, the sort of confident taunt they now feel they can fling at the faltering Blues.
Provocative remarks from Bulls coach Heyneke Meyer have added extra sauce to tomorrow's tasty Super 14 meeting at Pretoria as a revamped Blues side look
to reverse their form slide.
Blues coach David Nucifora has made some serious noise this season about the work done on repairing his side's mental strength and discipline, and on the value of the leadership in the squad.
That has unravelled in the last two losses, and by deciding to ditch All Blacks Ali Williams and Joe Rokocoko from the starting XV, Nucifora has veered more towards players who served him strongly while the test players were being reconditioned.
It is now a question of whether his originals can recapture the control they will need tomorrow at Loftus Versfeld.
The test from the Bulls will be enormous as they have expanded their game in recent weeks, they feel impregnable in Pretoria, they have watched the inability of New Zealand teams to win in South Africa this season and seen the Blues stalled on the Super 14 ladder.
Semifinal places are on the line, and with them the financial gains for teams hosting playoffs. The Bulls have momentum, the Blues have sagged.
With those changes come psychological alterations, the sort which prompted Meyer to challenge the Blues to forget the view of his side as being forward dominated and attack out wide.
"We enjoy playing teams with a natural running game because we've always backed our wide defence and if that continues to be good, it gives us an opportunity to generate turnovers and attack from broken play," he said.
Meyer mentioned the way the Blues "panicked" in their loss to the Stormers and promised the Bulls would keep their structure to force mistakes in the Blues half.
"The game will be all about pressure - how we apply it and how we keep it off ourselves."
In their past few matches the Bulls have shown their setpiece power especially in the lineouts and drives with Victor Matfield, Bakkies Botha and Pedrie Wannenburg.
But they have also shown more variation with the ball, adding some backline interplay to their repertoire.
The danger will be if they do not get that right, and if they do not have enough support or cleanout players, they will expose themselves to the marauding talents of Daniel Braid and Blues counterattacks.
Six changes and a positional switch to No 8 for Jerome Kaino is a sizeable revision at this stage of the series.
But Nucifora had little alternative after his side flunked the Cape Town match against the Stormers. The task there was no secret and they fell well short of the required standards.
"Since then the side has responded really well in training, but we know it is about getting the off-field preparation and intensity right," the coach added.
After a strong start to his first series as the premium five-eighths, Isa Nacewa has lost some rhythm. But if he gets enough quality ball, his decisions will go a long way towards being the barometer for the Blues fortunes.
