Bulls must back Cheswill Jooste in their bid to slay Glasgow Warriors at Scotstoun

Bulls coach Johan Ackermann has said his charges will need to produce something special in the Champions Cup to beat the red-hot Glasgow Warriors on their home turf this Saturday — so why not throw caution to the wind with his selections?

The Warriors are one of the finest attacking sides in Europe. They boast a beefy pack that provides quality ball, brilliant backs, and an astute, attack-minded coach in Franco Smith. To beat the Warriors, who sit atop the United Rugby Championship with four rounds remaining, you simply have to outscore them.

The Bulls’ pack is arguably a touch stronger than their Glaswegian counterparts, and on the fast 4G pitch at Scotstoun, the men from Pretoria have the backline to rack up the points. To that end, this is Ackermann’s opportunity to give the sensational Cheswill Jooste a bigger share of the game time.

The 19-year-old scored a jaw-dropping 50m try against Munster at the weekend, underlining exactly why Springbok coach Rassie Erasmus rates him so highly. Jooste was invited to the Springbok alignment camp in Cape Town in early March. Against Munster, he received the ball out wide near the halfway line, stepped inside a defender, and screamed towards the posts, swerving around would-be tacklers.

Jooste’s pedigree is elite; he clocked 10.74 seconds for the 100m at a school athletics meeting in 2024, with a 200m time of 22.05 recorded on the World Athletics website. A product of Vredenburg in the Western Cape who was schooled at athletics powerhouse Hoërskool Noordheuwel in Gauteng, Jooste represented SA Schools in 2023 and 2024, and the Junior Springboks in 2025. He has been at the Bulls since then but has battled for minutes in a backline awash with Springboks.

After the Bulls’ hard-fought win over Munster, Ackermann noted: “If we’re in the play-offs in the Champions Cup, we must give it a full go. We will give it our best shot. We have a big challenge ahead of us, but we’ve got nothing to lose. We understand that it is a privilege to play in a Champions Cup Round of 16 match — we are alive in one of the best competitions in the world, so we will give it our best.”

Fortune favours the brave, and Ackermann should boldly back Jooste on one wing, moving either Canan Moodie or Kurt-Lee Arendse to full-back in place of the hot-and-cold veteran Willie le Roux. The latter had some deft moments with the boot against Munster but was also guilty of clumsy handling. Both Moodie and Arendse have experience at number 15.

If the Bulls arrive in Glasgow with an attack-to-win mindset, a back three of Jooste, Moodie, and Arendse is the ultimate dream team.