The Sharks will face arguably the biggest challenge yet of their midfield defensive structures this week, as Francois “Swys” Venter returns from off-season ankle surgery to take his place in the Cheetahs number 13 jersey. Venter will also assume the captaincy mantle, while reuniting a dangerous attacking partnership with inside centre Nico Lee.
Coach Franco Smith is clearly trying to box clever this season. Knowing that he doesn’t boast as much depth as some other local coaches, he sent a team to Beunos Aires last week that were nothing short of sacrificial lambs – that is, if you compare them to the strength of the outfit named to face the Sharks. Returning to the starting lineup are Ox Nche, Torsten van Jaarsveld, Aranos Coetzee, Paul Schoeman, Justin Basson, Shaun Venter, Raymond Rhule, Fred Zeilinga, Sergeal Pietersen and Lee – it’s a completely new team, in other words, and the Sharks will thus not be able to learn too much from the previous Cheetahs result.
With a strong, nuggety tight five, combative loose forwards and a backline full of running, the Sharks will need to be at the very top of their game to have any hopes of a victory in Bloemfontein this weekend.
Cheetahs: 15 Clayton Blommetjies, 14 Sergeal Petersen, 13 Francois Venter (captain), 12 Nico Lee, 11 Raymond Rhule, 10 Fred Zeilinga, 9 Shaun Venter, 8 Henco Venter, 7 Teboho Mohoje, 6 Paul Schoeman, 5 Francois Uys, 4 Justin Basson, 3 Johan Coetzee, 2 Torsten van Jaarsveld, 1 Ox Nche.
Replacements: 16 Elandré Huggett, 17 Charles Marais, 18 Tom Botha, 19 Carl Wegner, 20 Niell Jordaan, 21 Tian Meyer, 22 Niel Marais, 23 Ryno Benjamin/Clinton Swart.
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Not a bad team!!! Sharks will have to improve a lot from last week to win this game but hey they did it after the Reds games!!!
when you look at a team like this, I can’t understand why the cheetahs are always so shit in this competition.
@robdylan (Comment 2) : Your answer lies in the team that went to Argentina. Simply not enough money to sustain quality in depth.
Think Coenie has his work cut out for him.
@Hulk (Comment 4) : That Ox is a machine….really impressed by him.
Good side this…tough job on Saturday. This will establish our credentials…or not. We will need to play at the level we showed against the Tahs…
@FireTheLooser (Comment 5) : May he still follow in the footsteps of another Freestate Ox, although with the current shambles at Bok level ???
@Hulk (Comment 4) : @FireTheLooser (Comment 5) : for sure! Sharks must work together as a unit!
@KingCheetah (Comment 3) : OK so I did my good deed for Cheetahs by buying tickets for the game! Now after all the food and cold drinks Saturday you might be able to buy one more player to add depth! 😈
@JD (Comment 9) : Gonna JD, didn’t realise tickets and drinks were that expensive ????
Will make sure we buy Ginger back 😳
@KingCheetah (Comment 10) : I did not say you would be able to buy a good player 😈
@KingCheetah (Comment 10) : Best thing for SA would be to move the entire Tsietas operation to Pretoria. Bulls budget with Cheetahs coaching and players.
Much better option than having the bulls buying more tsietas players and having them produce the same rubbish as Lood and co.
@FireTheLooser (Comment 12) : 😈 Or just send the Bulls budget to the Cheetahs, to be used more studiously.
@KingCheetah (Comment 13) : Or, just send all the money pumped into the Kings to the Cheetahs….but, how do we drop the Bulls from SR – hard to do when they have 3 SR titles behind their names.
Apparently we’ll be dropping two teams. Kings and probably Cheetahs, although currently the Bulls deserve being dropped, I can’t see it happening.
@FireTheLooser (Comment 14) : Yes, a lot of speculation. If they do drop the Cheetahs, it will be a big blow to the central region. Let’s hope there is a relegation mechanism in place.
@KingCheetah (Comment 15) : Play the Currie Cup as normal and top 4 teams go through Super Rugby.
Make the Currie Cup much more exciting and important.
Bad luck if you don’t make top four no matter how many tournaments you have won.
Players from the teams that don’t make sit should be available to those who do.
@The hound (Comment 16) : Make Currie Cup Great Again
McCGA
@KingCheetah (Comment 13) : yes, do that.
@The hound (Comment 16) : How would you propose the sides which have high numbers of Boks?
@The hound (Comment 16) : @FireTheLooser (Comment 17) : @KingCheetah (Comment 15) : problem with using Currie cup to select teams for Super rugby is that very seldom teams play with their full squad so will have to work around Bokke commitment to ensure the strongest 4 teams and not the team that lost the fewest players to the Bokke will be selected/qualify!
@robdylan (Comment 18) : @KingCheetah (Comment 15) : lately the Cheetahs and Bulls have traded so many players that I think about 70% of both teams players have played for both teams! 🙂 😈
@JD (Comment 20) : Great point, we saw that with the Lions when they did so well in the CC a couple of years back because they had good consistency in their selections and had their best players available for the whole season.
@Quintin (Comment 22) : for sure! Teams with less Bokke players usually do better than teams with lots of Bokke now it’s exactly those teams that will be penalise by losing Super rugby spot. Can only work is Currie cup is played with same squads as Super rugby!
I agree we need to get a he curry cup elevated in status. It’s where we built our boks from when we were still a winning country and what will ensure bench strength and depth beyond what overseas players can add during their short and injury prone super rugby stints.
@JD (Comment 23) : More binding contracts?
@coolfusion (Comment 25) : was talking more about Bokke players not this silly dual SA/Jap contracts so more binding contracts will have no effect on it unless we sign more foreign players.
@JD (Comment 26) : I meant on the young up and coming guys who don’t have foreign contracts yet. Stricter contracts with heavy buy out penalties. Even if the foreigners can afford those hefty penalties at least the finds can subsidize replacement costs. At the moment it’s too easy to take our youngsters with very little financial risk to foreign clubs. Make it harder so they have to think twice before buying an unknown. SA is a dimestore to them at the moment.