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Bulls head coach Johan Ackermann says he is not looking too far ahead as his side begins preparations for the upcoming United Rugby Championship.
The Pretoria outfit reached their third URC final in four seasons earlier this year, but once again fell short against Irish giants Leinster.
While many believe Ackermann will ultimately be judged on delivering silverware, he insists the focus right now is on their opening clash against the Ospreys at Loftus Versfeld next Saturday.
"I don't want to give Ospreys any hope hey, and I don't know if they're going to see it, but I don't think we are 100 percent yet, to be honest with you," said Ackermann.
"And it's not because of a lack of talent or [anything], we just had a challenging month and a bit that I've been here because, again, the synergy between us as coaches getting a feel for each other, and then getting to know the players.
"But the biggest challenge is up until today, we've not been able to train with the starting XV because there's constantly players, unfortunately, missing training and picking up niggles or not really fully fit yet.
"So that is a bit of a concern, but in saying that, the players who are training are training very well, and we're confident that we'll have a team that will compete next week."
With the URC set to kick off at the end of September, and the European Champions Cup beginning in early December, Ackermann says the Bulls want to compete strongly on both fronts, but admits there are complicating factors to consider.
"We'll probably would have had our Springboks for only three weeks before the first European game, because they finish against Argentina when we go on tour," he added.
"So they're technically only available for Ulster, Connacht and Glasgow, and then away in November, and then they come literally the Monday before Bordeaux.
"So if we want to go for both competitions, we're going to rely on everybody, firstly, to be fully fit and, secondly, be fully committed to that, and that's why in theory we want to go for both, but we'll only know come end of November where we are from a planning point of view."
