For the Sharks this weekend, there simply has to be one and only one objective: get the basics right.
Rugby is ultimately a rather simple game, but it can get complicated very quickly, especially once pressure starts to build. We’ve already pointed out that the Sharks, with their fifth new coaching regime in as many tournaments, really ought to be considered a team in a rebuilding phase; that message, though, falls on deaf ears when the team has a fan base as accustomed to – and demanding of – success as this one is.
Even the talk of moving to a more entertaining style of play did little to appease the masses, who clearly expected the Sharks to play error free ball-in-hand rugby from the outset while winning each game. With a bonus point. Of course. Needless to say, things haven’t worked out quite as planned and far from having the luxury of a bit of time and space to work with his players, Gary Gold instead finds himself facing barrages of criticism; for the players, it’s not much better.
I spoke to a friend whose opinion I trust highly and his view is that there are a few rather simple, yet very fundamental, things that you need to doing right to win a rugby game. I feel that if the Sharks stop worrying quite so much about the fancy stuff and rather focus on getting the core things right, a win against the Cheetahs becomes highly likely.
Win your scrums.
Win your line-outs.
Take your kick-offs.
Make your tackles.
Be sure of your exits.
Those are the five things that the Sharks really need to concentrate on. Get it right and the rest will follow.
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take care of the pennies and the pounds will take care of themselves
Agree fully. Once you have your basics in place you can start working on the other things – like entertaining rugby.
However I would like to add one more objective, in addition to this I think we have to win this week-end, otherwise the slope gets way to slippery from there on out.
If I may ask, what do you mean ‘be sure of your exits’?
Agree with the 5 but feel a 6th could be added – Secure own breakdowns.
Agree, back to basics, do the simple things right and the rest will follow…
@Letgo (Comment 3) : well, you can keep adding, right?
@stevovo (Comment 2) : what I mean is concentrate on absolute safety-first rugby in the 22.
Nothing fancy, just well-executed kicks to relieve the pressure.
Not getting charged down, not hoofing the ball downfield into the arms of Willie le Roux, not getting tackled behind the scrum and conceding possesion, etc etc
text-book rugby….requires a team to effectively execute.
Our esteemed captain does not strike me as the quintessential team-before-all-else type of person. I could off course be completely wrong, but it is just a hunch.
How about 1 backline move that ends up with a wing having the ball? Or is this pure fantasy?
Added to the above, the next five fundamental things:
Don’t play Matt Stevens
Don’t play Matt Stevens
Don’t play Matt Stevens
Don’t play Matt Stevens
Don’t play Matt Stevens
Did you really need outside advice to come up with those five points.Most prep school teams have mastered that.
We have five or is it six highly paid full time professional coaches and a World Cup winning captain as a C.E.O.
What this team needs is accountable leadership.Some one needs to stand up and accept that one out of four is not acceptable if you are going to charge nearly seven thousand rand for two season tickets and parking.
I am waiting for someone to man up to that challenge..
@robdylan (Comment 6) : Thanks, umm not something I saw in the 2nd half of the Stormers game for sure.
@The hound (Comment 10) : Exactly. In other words TAKE RESPONSIBILITY for the pathetic performances so far. After reading the latest drivel from BMH (another one of John Smit’s stooges) on the Sharks website I don’t hold out much hope of that.
I dont blame the coaches for our losses, rather the players. None of the players have start playing rugby a month ago. They should get the flack for not catching a ball, missing a tackle. Ill discipline etc. In other words, the BASICS. Play as a TEAM and show some passion and pride.
@stevovo (Comment 11) : exactly my point 🙂
@The hound (Comment 10) : We bow to your superior knowledge…maybe you can represent all Sharks fans and call a meeting with the Sharks team and management, and deliver your message of “man up” in person? 😉
@Greg (Comment 12) : Totally agree.
Sharks erred in sending their least, erm, “erudite” coach to face the media after Saturday’s debacle.
@FireTheLooser (Comment 15) : Come to the next home game,and you can choose from one of three thousand guys delivering that message at which one is me.
@robdylan (Comment 17) : Doesn’t that kinda prove my point,
@The hound (Comment 19) : I’ve given up on trying to work out what your point is.
You’re rather similar to your literary namesake… about 7 foot of seething anger and not much else.
@JarsonX (Comment 13) : I completely agree with you. I didn’t see too much wrong with our game-plan against the Stormers. This was obvious in the first half. The coaches did their part. The players didn’t follow through.
😈 It’s going to be epic. Cheetahs really missed Sarel vs. the Bulls. By the looks of things we will have Ratel Brüssow for at least a half on Saturday. Sykes will add some much needed depth at lock.
1. LH PROP Danie Mienie
2. HKR Torsten van Jaarsveld
3. TH PROP Coenie Oosthuizen
4. LOCK Carl Wegner
5. LOCK Francois Uys (C )
6. FLANKER Tienie Burger
7. FLANKER Jean Cook
8. 8th MAN Boom Prinsloo
9. SHALF Sarel Pretorius (VC)
10. FHALF Joe Pietersen
11. WING Raymond Rhule
12. CENTRE Francois Venter
13. CENTRE Johann Sadie
14. WING Cornal Hendricks
15. FBACK Willie le Roux
Replacements:
16. RES PROP BG Uys
17. RES HKR Stephan Coetzee
18. RES PROP Maks van Dyk
19. RES FLANK Heinrich Brussow
20. RES LOCK Steven Sykes
21. RES SHALF Tian Meyer
22. RES FHALF Willie du Plessis
23. RES FBACK Clayton Blommetjies
Sharks should be favourites given their wealth of Springboks in the starting 22, but rugby isn’t played on paper.
Goooooo Cheetahs……Good Luck Sharks
Previous encounters:
This will be the 15th Super Rugby encouter between the two teams since 2006. The Sharks are leading with eight wins to the six of the Toyota Cheetahs. It will also be the seventh time the teams meet at the Free State Stadium in Bloemfontein since the first Bloemfontein encounter in 2007. Out of the six pervious matches, the Toyota Cheetahs won two and the Sharks four.
In 2014 the two teams took turns to win their home games: the Sharks in Durban with 19-8 and the Toyota Cheetahs with 27-20 in Bloemfontein, however the Toyota Cheetahs turn the tables in 2015 winning their away match on 14 February 35-29.
(Toyota Cheetah scores mentioned first):
Cheetahs vs Sharks
Date
Venue
Result
Tries
18/2/2006
Kings Park, Durban
27-26
4-3
10/3/2007
FS Stadium, Bloemfontein
14-30
2-3
10/5/2008
Kings Park, Durban
14-33
2-5
11/4/2009
FS Stadium, Bloemfontein
31-6
4-0
19/2/2010
Kings Park, Durban
25-20
1-1
19/2/2011
Kings Park, Durban
9-24
0-2
4/6/2011
FS Stadium, Bloemfontein
18-23
2-2
19/5/2012
FS Stadium, Bloemfontein
20-34
1-4
14/7/2012
Kings Park, Durban
15-34
0-5
23/2/2013
FS Stadium, Bloemfontein
22-29
3-2
20/4/2013
Kings Park, Durban
12-6
2-0
19/4/2014
Kings Park, Durban
8-19
1-1
5/7/2014
FS Stadium, Bloemfontein
27-20
3-2
14/2/2015
Kings Park, Durban
35-29
4-2
14/3/2015
FS Stadium, Bloemfontein
Played: 14. Sharks won: 8. Cheetahs won: 6.
Points scored – Cheetahs: 277. Sharks: 333.
Tries scored – Cheetahs: 29. Sharks: 32.
Sharks’ average winning score – 24
@KingCheetah (Comment 22) : And the best of luck to your team too mate.
@KingCheetah (Comment 22) : Good looking team!! I’m so glad to see Brussouw back!
THE MOST underrated player in SA. He should have about 70 or 80 caps for the Boks by now and it’s a crime that he isn’t picked. We are too size-obsessed in this country and probably wouldn’t have used the likes of George Smith and Michael Hooper “because they’re too short to jump in the lineouts”.
I hope that the Sharks concentrate on their handling and decision making because the game on Saturday had a lot of positives in it. We were good for the first 40 minutes and careless passes and some silly decisions cost us. The team will learn from these mistakes and come back stronger this weekend.
@robdylan (Comment 20) : My point is very simple especially to an obviously superior intelligent being like yourself,somebody needs to take responsibility.
You then made a barbed reference to the fact that the Sharks sent Brad to face the media.
The tone of your comment and the inverted commas around erudite,sugest that an incompetent stooge was pushed out in front of the press.
My point was sort of proved.By the way I do not agree with your take on Brad.
@KingCheetah (Comment 22) : Wow since when are away teams favourites to win when their current record is 1 out of 4. The argument of 11 Boks dont hold water either as we got klapped – Boks and all!! #JustSaying
Here’s one for us today….
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8pi6kFYR8zk
@The hound (Comment 26) : the only thing I said about Brad is that he’s not as media savvy as some of the others. And I don’t think that’s a particularly contentious – or even unfair – point.
The quotes around “erudite” where meant to illustrate exactly that.
@robdylan (Comment 28) : That is seriously beautiful,reminds me of Jackson Browne
@Dryden (Comment 8) : Actually we had some fairly good backline moves against the Stormers in the first half.
@The hound (Comment 30) : yeah, that’s true. Underrated, was Jackson.
I would move exits to right behind scrums. We have this bad habit this year to let the oppo back in just after we scored.
@robdylan (Comment 29) : Brad I know was a Hilton boy,probably 60% of the reason that Bobby Skinstad was such a good rugby player.
He is well educated and had a good position at Investec,he probably is a lot more eloquent than Bismark,and he is probably in a better position to communicate to the Natal faithful than ”outsiders’ like Venter and Gold’
@The hound (Comment 34) : ok fine, in theory. But then you hear him speak in a press conference and he sounds really unsure of what he’s saying and doesn’t instill confidence in anyone that he actually has a grasp on what’s going on.
@robdylan (Comment 35) : I think he comes across as sincere and passionate,unlike MOST South African coaches who repeat the same insincere,scripted drivel about getting the basics right.I can predict exactly what Alistar Coetzee will say after every game,its the same script Luddeke or Drotske,repeat ad nauseam.I t’s the same drivel that comes out of A,B de Villiers mouth.It starts off by saying on Monday we go back to the drawing board being more accurate and then there’s the ineviable,thanks to the Almighty.
The reason I characterize most of what BMH spouts as drivel: “We struggled at scrum time, but in the first half we had one or two good scrums as well, so we were probably a bit inconsistent. They seemed to get the roll on us and unfortunately we lost that area of the game.
Do we need a presser to know this? 😯
“We were just six points behind after a penalty by Pat, but we didn’t exit from the kick-off, were charged down and they got the penalty try, so it was definitely a big momentum shift.”
Trying to shift focus from the REAL reason for the loss. It was not about the penalty try, it was about the BLOODY POOR PERFORMANCE which he, as one of the multitude of coaches, needs to be accountable for.
@Greg (Comment 37) : settle down….. either you’ll break your shift button, or worse, have an aneurysm 🙂
@Greg (Comment 37) : What he is saying is true,but he can hardly say that when he was solely responsible for the forwards nobody ever dominated our scrum,but now that Gary Gold has arrived as head coach and being a specialist forwards coach he had to surrender that responsibility to him.Gold obviously brought in Stevens,chose him to start and had sole responsibility for keeping him on the park.losing scrum after losing scrum.
Gold should have been there to explain why he kept SAdriaanse out of the game for so long.
@The hound (Comment 10) :
If it is that simple, why do we see professional and even international teams struggle for consistency with 3 out of those 5 basic principles?
In 2009 the All Blacks couldn’t buy a line out and could not compete with us in the air which made every single kick off receive a 50/50. They got smashed 2-zip by the Boks, last time we won the 3N.
Since then, they worked on these very basic deficiencies and now rule the roost again.
The point is these might seem very basic, even for a school boy team, but it remains an absolute fundamental skill and area from which everything else emanates, from breakdown domination, your kicking game, to your beautiful long range backline tries in the corner by the wings.
I absolutely f#^@&& cringe when coaches or fans talk about ‘running rugby’ as their core focus or what they would love to see – tell me you will win 80% of those 5 very simple things, and I am your biggest supporter.
@The hound (Comment 39) : Adriaanse didn’t really make a big difference, did he? They just had our number.
@robdylan (Comment 38) : Totally settled here mate 😀
As a matter of record I don’t buy into your “lets give the new management time to settle” theory either.
@The hound (Comment 39) : Gold did not bring in Stevens. Stevens was contracted about 9 months before Gold got the job.
@Ben (Comment 41) : Yeah but we didn’t have to look at his fat gut hanging out his jersey.
Seriously I thought our scrums improved when he came on
@Greg (Comment 42) : you don’t, do you?
I’d be interested to hear your counter argument as to why it’s not important to allow them time to settle. I’ll even try to keep a straight face while reading it.
@The hound (Comment 44) : I’d agree with you but then we’d both be wrong.
(Sorry, I had to! Vinnie always looks so damn cool when he says that)
@robdylan (Comment 43) : What I was told was that Stevens came home to end his career where it started.He is a good bench man cause he can play either side.I don’t think even in his wildest dreams did he think he was ever going to play 50 min of Super Rugby.
In his mind it probably was 10 min every third week.
I have been watching Matt since he was a school boy at DPHS,and then at Kearsney,and he is in shocking condition.The man is not fit to play 50 min of Super rugby,if we can all see it why can’t Gold.
where are we with the additions? I’ll just reserve a spot at nr 10 don’t kick every possession away, or at all (this means you Cobus!)
@The hound (Comment 39) : Adriaanse the man who had to fill Jannie’s boots in our successfull (until the quarter finals) 2014 SR season and the subsequent Curry Cup season? Why would you want to play him? Rather play the walrus from saracens even though he has never played a super series (that I can recall)
@The hound (Comment 47) : too late he can’t come and end his career here it seems it has already ended before he got here. Does he have anything left in the tank? I doubt it. Groom Chadwick!
@robdylan (Comment 46) : I’d use a retort like Vinnie’s, but then we would both be sourcing our wit from gum wrappers and bumper stickers….
Those 5 points are very correct and should be fairly obvious to every coach involved at any level. Its easier said than done under pressure tho. For me only one thing matters on Saturday- that we score more points than the Cheetahs. If we do that by 1 or 100 id be happy.
@Morné (Comment 40) : Yes. Very true. Fundamentals! I’m sure Super Rugby coaches already know all of this, but like you said if it was that easy …
@Letgo (Comment 53) :
It is not that difficult really, but go watch a standard practice session at any team and you will see moves executed that needs science degrees to decipher it is so complicated!
I will put R1000 down that I will not find one hooker in this country that can hit a rugby post 15 times in a row (about the amount of line outs in an average game) where the cross-bar connects to the vertical bar standing on the 15 meter line. Yet, this is a basic fundamental for a hooker.
@Morné (Comment 54) : Put down Forex Morné. What value does Rand still have?
@Morné (Comment 54) :
Don’t come spout your WP biased nonsense on this site Morne.
Bismarck would hit it 30 times in a row from the halfway line mate.
He also urinates cabernet sauvignon and defecates gold bars.
@VinChainSaw (Comment 56) : Really depends on how heavy she is
@VinChainSaw (Comment 56) : Yeah but he can’t do your special trick,make the sun go down every time he sits down
@The hound (Comment 58) :
I suppose it was too good to last.
FU Dawg! lol
@Ben (Comment 24) : Thanks.Sure it will be a cracker.
@Morné (Comment 54) : ja that’s true but also remember that the poles are static and the line out jumpers are running all over the place, also why always blame the hookers also watch the jumpers. Don’t get me wrong the line out throwing of some hookers really makes me want to throw up but they’re not always to blame some times the jumpers must also take the blame!
@VinChainSaw (Comment 59) : hey boet don’t go looking for shit and then cry if someone calls you a dungbeatle.
@JD (Comment 62) : Where do you see me whining bud?
@JD (Comment 62) :
Gotto love those proverbs. Very Sancho Panza-ean.
“A closed mouth catches no flies.”
“Every man is as heaven made him, and sometimes a great deal worse.”
‘by night all cats are grey’
‘whether the pitcher hits the stove, or the stove the pitcher, it’s a bad business for the pitcher’
@fyndraai (Comment 64) : Moving up in the world, are you?