Gaylanders full of Bullshit

Highlanders vs Bulls

The Highlanders have an outside chance at best of making the playoffs, whereas the Bulls not only have a very narrow lead at the top of the South African conference table, but also have a very narrow lead in holding down the 2 spot on the overall competition ladder, which means this is a huge game for them. The Highlanders have a +7 pts differential compared to the Bulls +108. There is a serious disparity of class between these 2 teams.

Here are the half-time margins for the games the Highlanders have played in NZ (scored bolded were leads they held, non-bolded were deficits they faced)...

7 pts vs Chiefs
10 pts vs Crusaders1 pt vs Waratahs
1 pt vs Hurricanes
0 pts vs Rebels
9 pts vs Stormers
2 pts vs Blues
5 pts vs Hurricanes

So they have trailed in 5 of 8 games. 2 of the 3 games they've led in were against average-to-horrible sides (Hurricanes/Blues) and their 1 decent first half effort was against a Crusader team that had a very slow start to the competition (finding it's way w/out Carter or McCaw being present). Of all of those games, the only opponent that could compare to the Bulls in strength is the Chiefs, and that was a 1st half in which they could not manage to score a try in (trailed 9-16).

As for the Bulls, they trailed against the Waratahs at half-time last week, and play @Waikato next week. I don't believe the Bulls have more chance of leading at half-time next week than they do this, and I also believe they're too good a team to trail at half-time for 3 straight weeks (which is the prospect they'll face by failing in this game).

Bulls ml (1.95) for the 1st half.

phat