Welcome to the Windhoek Lager Team of the Week for Round 10. We have decided to make it an all South African team and base it only on the weekend matches. So if your favourite player did not play on the weekend, he will not be in the team.
Thanks must go to Windhoek Lager for sponsoring this weekly Team. We will have a Team of the Year competition at the end of the season, so make sure to take note of certain players who consistently make the team.
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1. Tendai Mtawarira – The Beast was deservedly named Man of the Match after the match against the Hurricanes on Saturday. Showed why he should be part of the Springbok line up to start the defence of the World Cup.
2. John Smit – A welcome return to form for the Springbok skipper in his favourite position, and should drive him to get even better. Take that, critics!
3. Eugene van Staden – Making up an all-Shark front row, Eugene is fast becoming a household name for all Sharks supporters and is one of the better tightheads in South Africa at the moment.
4. Steven Sykes – Its rather tricky finding a lock pair that didn’t play kak this weekend, and I have gone with Sykes purely because his team won and the others were worse. Sorry Steven, a default selection this week.
5. Franco van der Merwe – A good game from the Lions lineout man, better than the other South African locks on the day, but still seriously far off any type of Springbok form.
6. Keegan Daniel – Even though he did not play the entire match, what an impact he made! He justified his selection in the Bok training group. This man brings a lot of pace to any game.
7. Willem Alberts – What team of the week will be complete without the Bone Collector? He is slowly playing, or should I say rampaging into a Springbok starting jersey.
8. Ryan Kankowski – Interestingly competitive position that keeps changing hands week after week. Ryan’s skill set has improved vastly in the last year or so. Warren Whiteley is a close second this week.
9. Fourie du Preez – If I could leave out any position this week, it would be this one. No players really stood out and upon more close inspection, ie watching replays of all the games, du Preez was the most impressive.
10. Pat Lambie – I can already see the comments around this selection, but here we go anyway. I am well aware that Lambie left his kicking boots in the car, but his game play and distribution was far superior to his fellow countrymen.
11. Lwazi Mvovo – Impressive game from the Sharks flyer, scoring two of the teams four tries on the night. Showed good toe and is slowly getting more and more involved in general play.
12. Doppies la Grange – Yet another good game from the Lions captain, leading from the front in his get-the-job-done manner of playing. Solid on defence as always.
13. Stephan Dippenaar – Not the easiest selection today, but showed he has a wider skill set and injects more pace than Jaco Pretorius, and any other outside centre this round for that matter.
14. Lionel Mapoe – After a rocky start at the Lions he is seemingly getting better week after week. Made the Chiefs defence look ordinary at times.
15. Louis Ludik – An absolute machine from the back for the Sharks, had an amazing game on attack. Looks great on the run with some pace to boot.
My player of the week has to be Louis Ludik – there is no better fullback in South Africa at the moment, and I hope Fransie Steyn is reading, because boet, you have a competitor!
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Yeah Louis is really solid right now! He isn’t in the Bok 51 is he?
Here’s the Sharks XV team to face WP this weekend.
15. Gouws Prinsloo
14. Mark Richards
13. Jerome Pretorius
12. Riaan Swanepoel
11. Sbura Sithole
10. Jacques-Louis Potgieter
9. Cobus Reinach
8. Marcell Coetzee
7. Lambert Groenewald
6. Francois Kleinhans
5. Gerhard Mostert
4. Anton Bresler
3. Wiehahn Herbst
2. Craig Burden
1. Dale Chadwick
Replacements
16. Kyle Cooper
17. Sabelo Nhlapo
18. Jandre Marais
19. Daniel Adongo
20. Ross Cronje
21. Heimar Williams
22. Rosko Specman
Gerhard Mostert is in this team so won’t be with The Sharks. And I see Burden is here so John Smit will most likely be considered on hooker against the Stormers.
@Ben (Comment 3) : Or Smit at 1 and Bis at 2?
@war1 (Comment 4) : Would be very unfair towards Beast, he had a great game last week.
@Ben (Comment 5) : Being rotated and being dropped are two different things.
@war1 (Comment 6) : And playing a player out of his position is another thing altogether. We need Beast for this game.
Good selection generally Rich, but I thought Watermeyer was appalling – especially how often he lost the ball in contact or got caught behind the advantage line.
The only worse player was the atrocious Jaco vd Westhuizen – he was so bad that I thought he was on drugs.
The “attempted intercept” at the end was truly cringeworthy. Captain of the kak XV for sure.
@war1 (Comment 6) : Warren this is a crunch game in the SA conference. We can’t rotate our best players for this game.
@Big Fish (Comment 8) :
Thanx Fish..
It was a difficult week with only three teams to choose from and only one of those three actually winning..
@Ben (Comment 9) :
Dude, John will murder the WP front row this weekend, mark my words.
Beast in the last 20 minutes will impact the game more than starting.
Have some faith, will you!?!?!?!
@Big Fish (Comment 8) : Watermeyer you say? You must mean Dippenaar?
@Richard Ferguson (Comment 11) : I prefer John on 2 dude… Would play Bissie off the bench
Who is selecting the teams? Are u still getting emails?
@Ben (Comment 13) :
Look, whatever team is selected will have to go and do a job.
As supporters we have to be behnd any team Plumtree decides on. Get with the program and don’t start looking for excuses before the game has been played
@Jarson (AddicteD) (Comment 14) :
I thumb suck it..
@Big Fish (Comment 8) : Watermeyer? 😯
@Richard Ferguson (Comment 15) : I’m not looking for excuses dude! I’m saying which team I would prefer!
@Richard Ferguson (Comment 16) : Thought so 😉
@Jarson (AddicteD) (Comment 17) :
I think it was a slip of the finger there..
@Big Fish (Comment 8) :
It was one of those best of the worst situations for me.. But I hear what you are saying..
@Jarson (AddicteD) (Comment 19) :
Why do you ask?
@Richard Ferguson (Comment 21) : It looks like a biased Shark supporter picked the team. But then again we were the only team that actually played a good game on the day.
Dippenaar, Watermeyer – still a peophol.
@Richard Ferguson (Comment 20) :
No criticism from me mate – just my opinion.
@Big Fish (Comment 23) : 🙂
@Jarson (AddicteD) (Comment 22) :
Its tough to pick a team from Sharks, Lions(kak) and Bulls (kakker)
@Big Fish (Comment 23) :
I know boet, I dont mind criticism that is backed by a decent comment.
@Richard Ferguson (Comment 25) : Just you wait for Boerseun to see this team. He’s gonna kak his pants! He would have wanted to see some Stormers and Cheetahs in this team! 🙂
@Richard Ferguson (Comment 25) : It was always going to be difficult especially at 4,5 and 13 where nobody really stood out.
I’m not even sure Fourie du Preez deserves to be there….I thought he had a shocker and even his passing game is crap at the moment. I remember a good couple of ‘grubber’ passes from du Preez. The Boks are really going to be in trouble if FdP doesn’t up his game very soon!