Discipline once again the thorn in the side of the Natal Sharks as they went down 29-14 to the Stormers in the last warm-up match of the Neo-Africa series at Newlands last night. CapeShark was at the game.
No team is going to win a game camped on their line for nearly a whole half and incurring two sin-bins in the process, that’s for sure. And so what had started as a great game with some excellent rugby either side of the half time whistle, rapidly degenerated into penalty bore-fest that only referee, Craig Joubert, will enthuse about.
As a spectator, who had arrived to watch a game of running rugby, I was expecting the referee to let the game flow a little more, given the inconsequential nature of it being a warm-up game. But then I suppose everyone had to do their job, and Joubert was pedantic about it to say the least.
The game started well enough with the Stormers showing some great running lines and the Sharks heavies and loosies making good ground. It would be an exaggeration to say any players ’shone’ but Keegan Daniel looked industrious, Jean Deysel was bruising as always and young Lambie showed he had the temperament to cope at this level (much to my relief as the kid looks barely twelve years old and I feared for his life on a few occasions).
The Stormers were the first to get over the chalk after some abysmal defence from the Sharks resulted in Schalk Burger running a great line to take the final pass and outstrip the defence, including a tired and porky-looking John Smit, who by his own standards had a forgettable night.
It looked as if the Stormers were in for an easy game but a couple of well-timed substitutions for the Sharks brought some respectability back to their play. In particular, Stefan Terblanche defied his sceptics (myself included) by running the ball and beating the defence on numerous occasions. Steve Meyer seemed far more potent with the ball in hand than Dumond. In what was to be their best passage of play, early in the second half, the Sharks found themselves with an extra man on the outside and some slick interplay saw Vulindlu canter in for an easy try.
But from that moment onwards it was all Stormers. Some alarmingly porous defence in the Sharks backline saw the Stormers surge with ease down the right hand touchline. Once they were in the Sharks 22 area, they never seemed to come out of it. After trying a couple of rolling malls, the Stormers eventually broke through the defence with a Tiaan Liebenberg try, which seemed to finally snuff out the spirit in the Sharks team. From my seat in the stands, I’m not qualified to give my opinion on the laws at the breakdown but it seemed an absolute dog’s breakfast with the whistle piercing the air nearly every two minutes. It wasn’t pretty either watching players endlessly substituting. With 10 minutes left on the clock, John Plumtree clearly decided the contest was over and it was time to look at combinations.
The final nail in the coffin was the sight of the modestly talented Fijian wing Sireli Naqelevuki streaking down the right hand touchline to score in the corner. Once again it highlighted the pathetic defence of our backline, that a player as limited as ‘Wookie’ undoubtedly is, should enjoy a brilliant solo run leaving a trail of Sharks players grasping in his wake. If this is the best our backline can do then I shudder at the thought of what’s to come this season.
The final score 29-14. The Stormers, it must be said, look settled and clinical. The old cliché is that you shouldn’t read too much into a warm up game, but you have to say their chances are looking good this season. The Sharks, in contrast, have a lot of work still to do particularly their discipline and defence out wide. Rest assured we won’t see them peaking too early this season. But there was enough to suggest that they will be competitive.
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Well the sharks came closer than I thought they would.
But you might have been a bit generous here. Why don`t you name and shame those backline players, like Odwa, who just forgot how to defend in the off season?
To be honest I was on the other side of the field. (foolishly hoping for some tries my side) I suspected it might have been Odwa, sheesh but he was poor! Look, i think it’s obvious now that we really need Ruan back to inject some class and I really hope Ludick’s injury heals quickly. Apart from Stef, there is no class in our backline!
@CapeShark (Comment 3) : When is Ru expected back?
@klempie (Comment 4) : No idea, initial press reports suggested he’d miss at least the first 3 games. I sincerely hope it’s sooner than that, we need him at flyhalf, big time! I know he doesn’t want to, but that’s where he’s most urgently needed.
dumond, strauss, swannie, murray, ndungane = [email protected]…they all did nothing, jusan de jongh feasted himself on the available space, even peter grant made himself look like a decent flyhalf against these palookas. If this whole backline depends on “mr no bmt” ruan, then the sharks are in for a torrid time! Forget about bonus point wins.
The Good Out Of Stormers Game-
-Teams learn more out of losses than wins during the preseason
-Mostert,mcloed,Deysel and Keegan really showed their worth
-Quite Physical concerning clearing out at the breakdown
-It is a Pre season game
-Good defence on occasions on our try line
The Bad-
-The Scrum
-The Lineouts and Kicking
-Organisation in the defence, despite the claims that strauss does a good job concerning this, Juan ran straight through
-Disipline
-The Ref ❗
Sharks to Beat Chiefs by 7-15 Points in Our opening game. I have lost no faith in the sharks coming right and doing great in the Competition, our pack is too good not to.
@CapeShark (Comment 5) : Agreed.
I know for a fact Riaan must start at inside if our backline is gonna get going forward this season. Lets hope he does.
@JJR (Comment 8) : which chiefs? The s14 finalists? Yeah right…chiefs by 15
Of course the defense was bad, we missed the opportunity to get some combination’s going. With all the subs, it’s difficult to defend well. Having said that, Sireli’s try wasn’t the fault of the back line, it was Bismark who missed the tackle.
I hope that Plum has a better idea of who his team should be after the game, and hopefully they can get some time together to form combination’s. I’m a little worried about the lack of pace in our centers, i think we did well off broken ball, but there was no plan off set phase ball. Which brings me to another gripe. I know that we were trying to win the game, but I still think that kicking for poles was a waste. I would have preferred it if we kicked the ball into touch, and then practiced some set moves. Place kicking in a friendly isn’t too much harder than on the practice field, but set pieces against an organised defense is invaluable.
Have said that, I was impressed with Beast, looks like he’s got some fire back, and Mcloed. His distribution was quick, and he got us on the front foot.
i don’t think they were really committing themselves on the defence. I’m more worried about the lack of tries.
JP Pietersen was probably the Sharks’ worst player imo.
Sharks look really really poor…
Of all the games I’ve watched they look to be a bottom 4 side…
But luckily for you the season is long…you might come around to the end!!!!!!
@Hmmm (Comment 16) : perhaps it’s better if they are not ahead of themselves.
@rekinek (Comment 17) :
Huh?
@Hmmm (Comment 18) : sorry – my saturday english. i mean would be good if sharks are not going into competition overconfident.
What now??? Okay…I know alot of people will tell you not to panic at this stage it was only warm-ups and all of that nonsense.But i can tell you that you may start to panic because there is a SHIT load to be worried about!. For starters, where is the intensity?, Do not tell me that they are keeping themselfs from injury, thats a load of horse shit.And What the hell happened to the springboks?, did they all of a sudden get unskilled and useless overnight?, why are they so poor?.And what the hell is going on in the backline?…absolutely nothing, i know.Hugh reese edwards my ass!!!.The Sharks where so poor its actually rediculous!!!.And obviously there are going to be “positives” that they took out of these two games.To make a long story short,the pack is looking bad, realy bad.The backline is looking bad, realy bad.The Sharks are going to have to do something realy fast to turn this “SLAPGAT” attitude of theirs around before the season starts. 😕
@The Shark (Comment 20) : finally a honest sharks supporter. Seriously what is up with john smit? The guy is overweight finish & klaar, i don’t want to hear about best captain in the world, the man as a rugby player is OUT OF SHAPE!! He needs major conditioning!!!
Which other hooker in the s14 is as dik gat as smit?
@Megatron (Comment 11) : We will talk when the game has been played 🙂
@Megatron (Comment 21) : Being overweight is a understatement when it comes to John.What kind of diet is the guy on??? Is he being sponsored by Mcdonalds or what???.Dumond is the worst and most predictable flyhalf in the Super14,i cant stand that guy!.Odwa…well thats all i got to say there…useless!.Waylon Murry…Pathetic!.Adrian Strauss…Useless!.Everyone was shit eccept for stephan he was the only one ho tried,with Steve Meyer who looks a much beter flyhalf than Monty Dumond and can probably be better than Pienaar.Willem Alberts…was he even there???…now thats a useless case!,the guy has absolutely no presence on the field whatsoever!!.I surely hope they are paying him in food coupons and not real money!.Why are there so many coaches at the sharks aswell???what is Edwards,Bashford,Keyser and all of those guys doing there???The guy who creates our backline moves must be a wet bread!!!.I afraid its going to be one hell of a long season boys!!!these guys just showed us that they are trying to make some kind of a statement by playing so poorly or they are just plain useless.Lets hope they did it on purpose to suprise us all!!!…but i highly doubt that.The 2010 Sharks are going to be a SHOCKER!!!.
@The Shark (Comment 23) : you sound like you’re just dying to support someone else?
@CapeShark (Comment 1) : fixed 😉
@KSA Shark © (Comment 25) : merci
Anyone read Keo’s take on Lambie? I don’t think he was at the same game!
What´`s more worrying than our discipline, defense and scrum is the total lack of creativity whatsoever in the backline.
During a promising period of sustained pressure, first JP then Andries kicked the ball away while we were on the Stormers 22. WTF??? Our entire arsenal consisted of bashing it up and the -yawn- predictable kick and chase, but often without the chase.
Compare that to the Stormers backline who, almost evey time they got the ball, looked like they knew what to do with it. Their first try was an absolute beauty.
At least we saw a bit of class from Stefan after some brilliant handiwork by Keegan to give us something to remember from the game.
The rest was pretty forgetable.
@Baldrick (Comment 27) : dude, you know mos that Keo’s dwarves only go to the game to get pissed and hang out with their WP cronies? That match report was up so soon after the game, you can only conclude that it was actually written beforehand, because Cardinelli knew he’d be too drunk afterwards to get it in.
On a related note, I found Bob and Matt Pearce to be quite sickeningly one-sided in their commentary. Guess the old WP bias lives on.
@rhineshark (Comment 28) : I reckon we looked ok with McLeod and Meyer running the show… ball got out quickly and there seemed to be a lot more urgency. It was outside them that things got boring. Waylon and both wings were just not in the game… not sure what to make of Swannie’s performance.
@rhineshark (Comment 28) : I we persist with the kick and hope for the best tactic against teams like the Chiefs we`ll concede bonus points within 20 minutes. They need to stop that and retain possession.
But we`ve been saying this for a year now so it`s no use really.
The Sahrks will continue to struggle as long as they persist with the blatantly failing experiment of Smit at 3…..with a rather average scrummaging 1 in Beast …and a hooker in Bismarck that is also regularily criticised for his scrumming….how can you persist with a weak Smit at 3?
Go look at that 5 m scrum on Sharks line again….disastrous. Yourbacks are lacking in real express pace….and this is going to be magnified if operating off back foot ball. A decision has to be taken ..soon.
Plum must have the toughest job in SA Rugby, those egos may prove disastrous.
Bulls` mixed team just took out a Lions mixed team 25 – 3 in Polokwane if you`re interested.
@robdylan (Comment 29) :
Bias by Matt a nd Skinstad wasn’t really a problem for me.
They are firm believers in the “if you say it with enough authority, then everyone will believe you” philosophy. They were sucking new Laws and twisting old laws as if they were at an IRB redesign the laws convention. 😳
@Original Pierre (Comment 33) : not interested. 😛
@Original Pierre (Comment 33) :
Did we really expect anything else though.
I DID!!!! 😕
I thought the margin would have been MUCH bigger.
@grant10 (Comment 32) : dude, we were down to 7 men in that scrum! You need to be a little realistic in your expectations
@grant10 (Comment 32) : don’t worry grant turbo reverse is acceptable at the tank when it is done by the best captain in the world (dik gat of note – they should start calling him yokozuna now & not barney)
Did you see him everytime he was trying to talk to the ref he couldn’t even speak properly that’s how out of breath he was.
Both Lions teams got smacked… hmmmm
Yeh against the current champs…lol
What was the scores…you know?
@Hmmm (Comment 40) : 25-3 in the first game, 42-12 in the second.
67-15 on aggregate. They usually only beat the Stormers by that sort of score 🙂
Ok I got the scores…not to worry….seems we gonna fight off the Sharks and Cheetahs for the bottom spot…
LoL
I see Rob….
@Hmmm (Comment 42) : hands off, dude! That spoon is OURS this year
LoL Rob…you have tough comp so don’t be so confident…
Have the LIONS ever won the wooden spoon…they are always second, third or forth last…not that it makes any dif though I guess hey…lol
@Hmmm (Comment 45) : Cats/Lions enjoyed an unbroken 4-year wooden spoon run from 2003-2006
@robdylan (Comment 46) : sorry – got that wrong.
bottom in 98, 03, 04 and 08
Wow! That was quick. 😯
@klempie (Comment 45) : not sure what you’re on about 🙂
@robdylan (Comment 46) : I’m talking about the guys at Oracle you called to come and save your ass…and on a weekend nogal!
@klempie (Comment 50) : Sharksworld runs on MySQL, which isn’t an Oracle pro… oh wait, nevermind
I just had a look at the highlights again. The Sharks scored a damn good try and the interplay leading up to the try was brilliant.
I think you guys are overreacting…
@wpw (Comment 52) : it was superb and (to me anyway) was a pretty good indication of how good Keegan Daniel could be as a centre 🙂
@robdylan (Comment 51) : hehehehehe
@robdylan (Comment 51) : Didn’t realise they had acquired it actually. Interesting.
@wpw (Comment 52) : Pensie. That was the only piece of Sharks style play that I saw the whole night. You’ll notice in the commentary that Rob and I made the same observation. Unfortunately, the rest was dismal.
@Hmmm (Comment 45) : Yeh. Feels much like the Sharks being consistently in the top 4 but never actually winning. 😛
@robdylan (Comment 46) : @robdylan (Comment 47)
Oh yeh I saw that…and they were second last to only the Sharks in 2005…lol
Where are some of you getting off with this doom and gloom and plain Sharks-bashing?
Do yuou realise this was a practise game? The Stormers werent looking that grand either, and the Sharks’ biggest problem was a lack of direction when we had ball in hand – which can be expected when your Bok 10 and 12 are injured.
I have serious concerns regarding the Sharks this year, but they are whether we will make the semis, not finish in Lions place.
Take some Prozac boys.
@klempie (Comment 57) :
Well I wont say consistently!??!
@Big Fish (Comment 59) :
Who is your Bok 10?
And those forwards did not look like much either…but as I said…still early season and might win a few later on…
@Hmmm (Comment 61) :
Guy called Ruan Pienaar.
I think we can somehow manage with 7 Bok forwards and our gifts from the Lions.
How is your pre-season traing going by the way? Flattening all comers I am sure.
Hi to all!. I just changed my mind a bit about what i saw in the warm up games. I thaught long and hard about our team and they need our support now more than ever. so lets start on a new page and expect The Sharks to come out all guns blazing against the chiefs!.I was realy upset after the warm-ups but i dont want to get ahead of myself and say that we are going to lose every match and so forth. I will always and forever support my team and i truly believe that we are all going to be suprised by how good we are actually going to be this season.We have the players!!!.We must just believe in them and tell them that we believe in them and show them our support. So as from now on i am going to be 100% supportive win or lose!.
Sharks forever!!!.
@The Shark (Comment 63) : that’s the spirit 🙂
Keegan for centre!!!!!!!
@Baldrick (Comment 65) : ja – keep him away from trouble!
@Big Fish (Comment 59) :
At last, someone that I fully agree with.
There was lots of experimentation in both games, less so in this one but enough to affect continuity. These were practice games and the intensity from the Sharks was not as it will be come Super 14. The Stormers on the other hand were playing a home game in front of a goodish crowd, their intensity was good. Also the Sharks were playing their second game within 3 days against a full strength Super14 team, who had a week off to prepare and repair.
As far as the Stormers go, their lineout was not always very good, their scrum had its moments against a seven man scrum but when the Sharks werent penalised at scrum time the Stormers did not have it as easily as they think and very importantly their Habana and Fourie were AWOL
@Salmonoid (Comment 67) : Fourie who? Was he on?
I agree Sammy. From what i’ve read on most blogs the majority of Stormers supporters are optimistic and some are even claiming we will make the final.
We are looking settled but one or two injuries to some key players and we might just struggle.
Tiaan also missed 3 lineouts and our scrum is rather average…
@robdylan (Comment 68) :
Looks like Habs’ role is going to be to put on pressure (hopefully from an on side position) when the high ball is kicked out of hand. It doesnt look like he will be getting much passed to him.
@wpw (Comment 69) :
There is definatly more than enough to be optimistic about, Habana and Fourie should take this team to another level and the team spirit looks really good. If they can keep it all together they can go far.
@wpw (Comment 69) : no no no! You watched the Sharks version of the game… you were meant to watch the Stormers version, where they won every scrum and took all of the Sharks lineout ball. Don’t you read the Cape press?
@robdylan (Comment 72) : Can see my influence coming through 😈
@Charlie (Comment 73) : good man, good man. So you kept Wes focused on the right bits, huh?