The performances dished up where chalk and cheese, but the results were, unfortunately, very much the same as the Sharks under 19 and under 21 sides both went down to strong Blue Bulls opposition at Kings Park on Saturday.
Ryan Strudwick’s under 19 side was something of an unknown entity going into this game, with most of the players pretty much untested since excelling at schoolboy level. The step up to the bigger leagues seemed to catch a few of the boys by surprise and there is a fair bit of work that needs to be done by the coaches to get the guys focused and committed to playing as a team. Bulls coach Paul Anthony does have a distinct advantage in that he has a far larger group of contracted players and has had those players working towards this game all year. Strudwick, in comparison, only got his squad together relatively recently and will need some time to whip them into shape.
The Blue Bulls won by 33 points to 21, scoring four tries to the Sharks’ two. Flyhalf Fred Zeilinga contributed 16 points on the day, but will concede that he and Paul Jordaan lacked synergy, particularly on attack and this is a big area that the Sharks Under 19 side will need to work on as the season progresses. Both Zeilinga and Jordaan are schoolboy stars with huge potential and much is still expected of their combination as it matures throughout the season. There were some reasonable individual performances from the likes of prop Allan Dell and outside centre Andrew Holland, but overall, there is much scope for improvement.
The under 19 side play SWD in George on Friday night in their second match.
Sean Everitt’s under 21 side, lead from the front by hooker Monde Hadebe, played far better, but ultimately suffered the same fate as they went down 18-25, securing a losing bonus point in the process. Fullback Gouws Prinsloo weighed in with a useful 13 points, including a try, but unfortunately couldn’t keep pace with the metronomic boot of Bulls flyhalf Louis Fouche, who punished the indiscipline of the young Sharks five times via penalties to win the game for his side, despite his team coming second in the try-scoring contest.
The Sharks had plenty of opportunities to win the game in the final quarter, but poor execution unfortunately let them down and they will know that they too have plenty of work to do in order to have a say in this competition. Their next fixture is against the Valke u21 side, in Brakpan on Saturday afternoon.
We’d like to encourage any Sharks fans either in the Southern Cape or the East Rand to get out and support the juniors this weekend.
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The u/21’s have serious quality all round; they just need to put it all together and into a team performance; Prinsloo needs to work on being consistent with his kicking. I would also start Norton at 10 in place of Du Plessis. I reckon Stander at 8 and then Jafta back at 7 with Cloete at 6 is a pretty sick loose trio. I like our front row and The Ukranian guy? did well and Stef- du toit is also very solid. So much talent, just did not put the points on the board, disjointed performance, but should get a lot better as they get to know one another better. Did not see u/19’s; but with Zeilinga, jordaan and Holland in the midfield i am surprised they did not do better. I heard we also dominated the scrums; did not see the game…so i wonder what went wrong?
Thanx for doing the article Rob, I was going to get there but never did.
My thoughts:
The U19’s really tried hard in the first half, but were run ragged with 25 minutes to go in the second. The backline kicked away almost all possession, which the Bulls gladly took and ran at us.
I though Zeilinga played brilliantly, he really did tackle like Lambie, and tried to get the backline going to little effect.
I thought Jordaan looked a bit out of his depth and tried too hard to impress.
The U21’s:
This was a closer game to that of the U19’s, but again we kicked too much. The centres did not impress me at all, with all ball stopping at Heimar and Lindeque not getting anything to run with.
The wings are both speedy, but look rather small and did not get any front foot ball when they did eventually get ball in hand.
The forwards played well, but they lack the power that they had in Coetzee and Kleinhans and Groenewald last year.
It was the first game and the Bulls are quite a strong outfit, so I do expect them to improve and maybe get in there with a semi final.
@Richard Ferguson (Comment 2) : it’s interesting Rich, because I’ve heard some quite contrasting views on how Fred played.
@Richard Ferguson (Comment 3) : sad to hear that Heimar didn’t do well…
@robdylan (Comment 4) :
What have you heard on Zeilinga?
@robdylan (Comment 4) :
It is sad, but I hope that those two will get to play better together, maybe they were just outplayed by a better Bulls backline..
@Richard Ferguson (Comment 5) : I’ve heard that his decision-making on attack was poor and that he held onto the ball too long at times.
All subjective, though and remember that because I didn’t personally see the game, I don’t really have my own opinion.
And to be honest, Im not so sure about Monde Hadebe.
The oke is a Burden type player, just half the size though.
Scrums looked much better with Malton on.
@Richard Ferguson (Comment 6) : Heimar and Piet are in their second season together now (and they play together at club level too)
I really see the two of them as a pretty established combination, so let’s hope they both manage to step up.
@robdylan (Comment 7) :
Yeah, he tried going on his own a few times, but not really to the detrement of anything.
His defence really stood out for me.. he made tackle after tackle, even in the last line of defence after the fullback left the field early in the game and the winger was caught out of position.
@Richard Ferguson (Comment 10) : look, there’s no doubt that Fred and Paul are both superbly talented players. They’ve also never played together and since both are playmakers, it’s inevitably going to take a bit of time to get them to figure out how to play together
Not heavily into the u19’s. Only know a few players in the squad, but i think I will don the colours and pitch up at the stadium Friday night.
@JustPlainSHARK (Comment 12) : there are a few future stars in that team, that’s for sure!
@robdylan (Comment 11) : @Richard Ferguson (Comment 10) :
Hi Rob and Rich.
I feel a lot better and more optimistic about our u19s after reading the report and your comments.
By the time the final whistle sounded I was very frustrated by our u19 team’s performance.
But as Rob has stated Paul Anthony is an outstanding coach (wait for the chorus on one from my Blue Blues friend), they have a much larger pool of talent to pick from and what counted most on the day, their longer time together as a team gave them a noticeable edge in execution, cohesion and continuity.
Richard has put a positive spin on it, it wasn’t all doom and gloom. There were some good things to build on. We stood our ground in the set pieces and we even had some good field position to attack off. Although the Bulls manufactured a few brilliant openings in our defence and took full advantage of these to score 5 pointers, we shut them down most of the time.
I believe continuity must be the one number focus this week. The best ball to attack off and take advantage of confusion in reorganizing defensive patterns is often 4th, 5th, 6th phase. Our coaches need to design a game plan that gives our quick line this option later in the drive. For this our ball carriers have to do a better job of protecting possession – they were handled in the physical collisions. I also think we sorely missed a Francois Kleinhans type player complete with his aggression (not dirty just robust)
I also hope a plan is made to make far more and better use of Jordaan. It’s pointless having a go at the likes of Wynand Olivier and Frans Venter if we’re ourselves going to settle on a 1 dimensional crash style of play. Paul is at least 10kg too light for this role. Heimar carried it out a lot more successfully for a number of reasons but watching him cut back and crash time after time after time was painful. It happened so often in both games that I have to believe that the players involved in this crash style rugby must have been following a game plan (perhaps derived because everyone suspected that the field would be wet).
Anyway we got off to a similar bad start last year and then improved so drastically that we actually had the best record in the 2nd round of the compo. There’s no reason why this group can’t equal that record.
@beet (Comment 14) : Also apart from continuity, better decision-making is key.
@beet (Comment 14) : Paul was my coach at school and I cannot speak highly enough of him
@robdylan (Comment 16) : I think even his most bitter rival would feel obliged to compliment him. I’m yet to hear anyone say anything bad about him. Even Affies folks like him.
@robdylan (Comment 16) : you went to school??? 😯
😛
@robdylan (Comment 16) : and good morning bro 😆
I see that last years scrum half,Dwayne Kelly, is in the conditioning squad for the u21. I really would love to see him play again this year. Any change do you think that he will play for the u21’s?
@Kanon (Comment 20) : I can’t see why not… Cobus is with the seniors and it’s pointless expecting FredZ to cover scrummy for the u21s when he should be concentrating on developing as a 10 with the under 19s.
@beet (Comment 14) : @robdylan (Comment 16) : I see that the defending u19 champs WP have announced their side for this weekend. I recognise three KZN names in the match squad;
– Pat Howard – MHS – starting at 13
– Hilton Mudariki – MHS – reserve 9
– Warren Seals – Kearsney – reserve inside back.
Dont know why Howard went to WP – did the Sharks even offer him a deal?
re Paul Anthony – a fine coach and a gentleman.
@steve (Comment 22) : and a bloody great musician too!
I don’t know all the details about Howard, but I’m pretty sure the Sharks wanted him. Might have had something to do with wanting to study in Cape Town?
@steve (Comment 22) : I thought Howard was a 12?
He’s not a very big oke, though, is he?
BTW, where’s Duncan Campbell?
@steve (Comment 22) : Lucky Chonco the College lock is also in the mix.
@robdylan (Comment 24) : He must be injured coz he’s part of their ±20 strong academy.
Earlier this year Duncan’s mom said that it would be touch and go between her son and Dillyn Leyds. Leyds is a bit like our guy Reef Nakin, just quicker and more elusive. There’s a good youtube video of him.
Another missing big name is that of Guy Whitfield, a very talented scrumhalf.
@robdylan (Comment 24) : Howard is certainly not small – according to SA rugby he is 1.88m and 94kg but that is probably a year or so out of date as most of those stats are.
He is quick enough to play wing where is was picked for the SA U18’s against England last year.
He has probably played mostly at 12 but personally I think he is a more natural 13.
@beet (Comment 26) : where did Reef go?
@steve (Comment 27) : oh ok… I must bo confusing him with someone else then!
@beet (Comment 26) : Is Nakin still in Durban. i heard he was offered a deal in the UK after school but put it on hold when he was included in the u19 squad last year.
@steve (Comment 29) : he’s definitely left Durban… just not sure where he’s gone.
Let me check facebook and see
@robdylan (Comment 30) : I will ask my sons and let you guys know.
Incidently I hear that Cameron Lindsay the MHS lock and Craven Week captain in 2009, who played mostly off the bench for WP U19’s last year, is at Saracens in the UK now.
@steve (Comment 31) : they like their SA locks…
@robdylan (Comment 32) : the Saracens academy is beginning to look more and more like another SA academy with all its Saffas.
So I guess I should have referred to Nakin as our former player.
BTW Warren Seals is a skilful player. He just needs to get his head right and he’ll do really well in rugby. I’m glad to see him in there playing at this level.