White has 'no regrets' after Bulls' Exeter defeat: 'You can lose the battle but win the war'

Jake White said he had no regrets after watching his young Bulls team fluff their lines against Exeter Chiefs, who meted out a rugby football lesson at Sandy Park on Saturday.

There was hardly a form of try Exeter didn't score as the former England and European Champions Cup champions scored six tries to defeat the Bulls 44-14.

White left no less than 21 senior players behind in favour of a very inexperienced and youthful team that had ageing Springboks Morne Steyn, Bismarck du Plessis, Nizaam Carr and Lizo Gqoboka dotted around.

AS IT HAPPENED | Champions Cup: Exeter v Bulls

The Bulls could not live with British & Irish Lion and England international hooker Luke Cowan-Dickie, who scored a hat-trick in the game.

White's men scored twice through Stravino Jacobs and Chris Smit and came close twice through Du Plessis and Reinhardt Ludwig, who were held up over the line.

White said if he abandoned his plan to give his young players a run ahead of his in-form Springbok superstars, then he "wouldn't win anything".

"Then I don't win anything. Then I might as well bring everybody here," White said when asked if he could have mixed the squads up.

"The bottom line is that I left some players at home to prepare for Friday and you bring some of your heavy guns here and then you use six in one match, then you don't win anything.

"I don't have any regrets. What we did is what we had to do. Bismarck and Reinhardt Ludwig could have scored and the game could have been completely different."

With the game sewn up, Exeter overhauled their team and the game was more open, if scrappier.

The Bulls had opportunities to strike punches that could have caused panic at Sandy Park but a slew of handling errors at the money end put paid to those chances.

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