The Cell C Sharks will travel to Ellis Park this weekend where they will face the Xerox Golden Lions in the ABSA Currie Cup Premier Division semi final.
Both sides come off good wins this past weekend. The Lions scored six tries in their annihilation of the Free State Cheetahs at home, 47 – 7, and the Sharks beat Western Province in Cape Town, 28 – 20, after trailing 8 – 20 with five minutes to half time.
The second place Lions have won 7 games and lost 3. They have scored 358 points and conceded 206, with 44 tries for and 21 against, bagging 8 bonus points. The third placed Sharks have also won 7, lost 2 and 1 draw. They have scored 287 points and conceded 222, with 25 tries for and 20 against and 3 bonus points.
The two sides are not unfimiliar with the proceedings that awaits them on Saturday, as they have played each other in five finals and two semi finals since the early ’90s.
Since the inception of the competition the Sharks have won 7 finals and the Lions 10 (including one shared title). The Lions have won the last two finals played between the two provinces, with the most recent being 2011 at Ellis Park, 42 – 16. Other finals include ’99 where they won 32 – 9 and ’93, 21 – 15 both played at Kings Park.
The Sharks have won two finals at Ellis Park, the first being in ’92, 14 – 13, and the second in ’96, 33 – 15.
They have also played two semi finals, both at Kings Park, winning one each. The Lions won in ’07, 29 – 14, while the Sharks won the following year, 19 – 12.
The Sharks will enter this match wearing the underdog tag, something they might not mind, as all the pressure will be on the Lions to remain unbeaten at Ellis Park with only Western Province giving them a good run for their money, losing 33 – 35.
Discipline and defence will have to be spot on for the Sharks, as they have given away too many soft tries this year, and having scored 44 tries, the Lions surely knows how to cross the try line.
Kick-off is at 14:30.
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Looking forward to this going to be a humdinger of game all the best to the sharks am sure we will give it 200 %
Going to be a great game!
May the team who scores the most points win.
@vanmartin (Comment 3) : something Naas Botha will say 😉
@pierre_mackie (Comment 4) : But on the other hand it is true 😉
it will be a game of two halves and the only thing we can say for certain is that each of those halves will be at least 40 minutes long.
Do we know who has the whistle on Saturday?
@HeinF (Comment 7) : some oke called Jaco van Heerden (I think that’s his name)…. never heard of him before
@robdylan (Comment 8) : He’s the guy who awarded a try for Stade Francais after the TMO apparently ruled that the player was out.
“Everyone saw the guy in the middle, nicely dressed, with shoes that matched his shirt, refereeing all afternoon with a smile.
“He spent the week in Paris, he must have visited a lot of things, had a nice walk around, and he did so this [Saturday] afternoon too.”
Labit added of the controversial try: “Everyone heard the video referee refuse the try except he [Van Heerden] decided to take the initiative to give it nonetheless.”
@Baylion (Comment 9) : that’s promising
It sounds to me like the Sharks have no chance…NO CHANCE!! 🙂 🙂 🙂
Going to be a hard game!!!!
@pastorshark (Comment 11) :
I’m not happy about admitting this BUT I agree with you.
For our Sharkies to win, I think, will be an ABSOLUTE MIRACLE!!!