Should Jacques Botes take the field on Saturday against the Lions, which is pretty likely, he will win a 90th Super Rugby cap for the Sharks, an important individual milestone on the way to the magical 100 mark.
Since the departure of John Smit and Stefan Terblanche, Botes remains as the most-capped player in the Sharks squad at this level and his value to the team over the last seven years cannot be questioned; in fact, there was a period few years back where he went through three Super Rugby seasons without missing a single game. In addition to the 90-cap milestone, Botes is the second-highest try-scorer in the squad and needs a single try to reach 25 Super Rugby career scores. Only JP Pietersen, with 27, has scored more often the Botes. On the field, I mean.
Bismarck du Plessis is not terribly far behind in terms of caps, earning his 85th tomorrow and while it’s, of course, completely premature to speculate, should the Sharks go on to qualify for the knock out phases and progress through whatever their first encounter during that phase should be, Bismarck could well reach his 100th cap playing in either a semi-final or perhaps even the final, which would be fun to watch indeed.
Steven Sykes wins his 55th cap tomorrow, while Pat Lambie marks his quarter-century, capped for the 25th time. Meyer Bosman, should he make an appearance, will do so for the 20th time for the Sharks, in addition to the slew of matches he’s played for the Cheetahs.
On the other end of the scale, though, there are still a lot of quite green players at this level, many of them in the pack. Anton Bresler, Wiehahn Herbst, Dale Chadwick, Marcell Coetzee and Paul Jordaan are all still sitting in the “sub-ten-cap” category, with Bresler and Herbst currently closest to that mark, on 7 appearances each.
Tweet
You go guys
Thought the post were about Smith getting his ton this morning….
Yes, Botes have been one of the great servants of Sharks rugby. I really feel like there was a point where his game was good enough to get a Bok call up. The always reliable Botes.