• While the Bulls’ recruitment over the past few months has been exciting, they face the challenge of the players having to gel quickly.
• Jake White, director of rugby, admits that it’s an issue that’s been talked about a lot already.
• The influence of mental consultant Henning Gericke is already being felt as he’s developed initiatives for the players to bond over.

Simple math explains why the Bulls have a bigger task gelling as a team again when rugby restarts, compared to their counterparts.

Currently, Jake White, the franchise’s director of rugby, has 36 senior squad players on his books.

He brought in 13 new recruits and off-loaded no less than 18.

Also take into account that the players only started non-contact training again two weeks ago and you have a group of men who, despite having to instil a new sense of communal pride into the franchise, are quite unfamiliar to each other.

“We talk about this quite a lot,” said White.

“For example, there won’t be any crowds (when we start playing again). That’s another thing you have to think about. When you run out at an empty Loftus it’s just as good as running out at Newlands for an away game. We have exactly chatted about that.

“How quickly are we going to become a team? It’s an interesting thing.”

It’s the type of situation where an accomplished captain can work wonders in helping team cohesion being achieved more easily.

But even that’s something that needs careful consideration, particularly if you’re going to pick a proven leader like Duane Vermeulen.

“You’ve got a guy like him who was here last year. Then he went to the World Cup and then departed directly for Japan. He’s come back now and doesn’t even know half these players, even if they were at the Bulls,” said White.

“A lot of age-group players have now graduated into the senior ranks. They and Duane have never even trained together. Is there a formula?”

Enter Henning Gericke, a longtime confidante of White’s and the Springboks’ psychologist during the 2007 World Cup-winning campaign, who has been roped in as a consultant.

“I’m sure there are things that we can do and get busy with in this regard. That’s why Henning is helping us and talking with us about those things,” said White.

One of the initiatives that he has come up with is a weekly ritual where players pull the name of a teammate out of a hat.

That is the teammate you’ll need to take out for a bonding session over coffee.

“A senior player like (winger) Cornal Hendricks this week picked our age-group hooker Joe van Zyl. You then sit over a cup and find out what’s that man’s story. Where did he go to school? What makes him tick? Otherwise you’re going to have the same guys who sit with each other all the time,” said White.

“It’s really important because we don’t have the luxury of other teams. The Sharks know who they are, the Stormers have played together for a long time and even the Lions, despite some of their signings, have been together a while now. We’re the one team perhaps that has cohesion challenges.”

Yet, the prospect of a 14-week domestic programme, which will start in mid-September after SA Rugby on Thursday received government approval for a return to play, has White confident that extended, uninterrupted action will instil a team culture expediently.

“If we go with a system of six games against the Super Rugby teams and then eight against the Currie Cup sides, that’s 14 weeks. I’m pretty sure in that time we’ll get the guys cohesive,” he said.

“It’s not that I want to lose the first or second game, but we gotta win the last game. That’s all we’re aiming for, to make sure that if there’s a final, we’re playing in it.”