Merry Christmas everyone. There is actually a Sharks game this Sunday.
Aphelele Fassi makes a welcome return to the Sharks team that was soundly beaten at Ellis Park. However the Sharks pack will have to front up this Sunday against the Cheetahs for any of the back line players to shine.
Jaden Hendrikse and Jeremy Ward will start at 9 and 12 respectively. Hard working Ruben van Heerden makes a welcome return at 4 and Jonny Meyer will swap the number 3 jersey with youngster Michael Kumbirai (who got a tough schooling from Dylan Smith last week).
15 Manie Libbok, 14 Sbu Nkosi, 13 Lukhanyo Am (c), 12 Jeremy Ward, 11 Yaw Penxe, 10 Curwin Bosch, 9 Jaden Hendrikse, 8 Sikhumbuzo Notshe, 7 Henco Venter, 6 Dylan Richardson, 5 Aston Fortuin, 4 Ruben van Heerden, 3 John Hubert-Meyer, 2 Kerron van Vuuren, 1 Ox Nche.
Subs: 16 Fez Mbatha, 17 Khwezi Mona, 18 Michael Kumbirai, 19 Hyron Andrews, 20 Thembelani Bholi, 21 Grant Williams, 22 Werner Kok, 23 Aphelele Fassi.
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Our tight 5 doesn’t fill me with confidence, but rest of the team should surely be good enough to get a result against Frans Steyn et al?
Oil vey, Nkosi out, replaced by Kok
1st minute try cheetahs, horror show at kick-off 7-0 cheetahs ahead 90 seconds
Penxe interception all square 4 minutes
A couple of weeks ago a head clash from tackler was a yellow card
@SeanJeff (Comment 5) : was interesting that he didn’t go to the pocket, same ref as the bulls game
If we can’t fix the scrum problems we are struggling with, this will end badly for the rest of the season
Cheetahs offside like its a Christmas gift, only been pinged for it once. Sharks making lots of errors.
Schoolboy errors costing the sharks dearly
Apparently the Sharks don’t have a scrum
Worst scrumming season we’ve had in many years
Cheetahs 17-7 after 26.min
Sharks scrum is an embarrassment at the moment. Its just not good enough and no excuse to be this bad. Every scrum is loss of possession.
Marius van der westhuizen not having a good game
@Pablo Dinero (Comment 13) : 8 out of 10 times a penalty conceded
Having said that, the cheetahs are offside permanently and the details are errors are making it when worse. Just a terrible game all round.
Oh boy. Shudder every time there’s a scrum
Cheetahs offsides again. No control over the offside line
And the sharks have forgotten how to catch a kick off on this game too
This is embarrassing. How did the sharks become so poor so quickly
Not sure the Sharks practice because they look like little boys
10 – 27 halftime score. So apart from a very soft intercept try the sharks have done absolutely nothing.
@Pablo Dinero (Comment 16) : if we can see it what is the excuse for the assistant referees or McGoon who is supposedly running the show
If the Sharks take this light 5 to Europe we will get drubbed in every single game. We need to find two actual tight heads very urgently. We actually lent Mchunu to Free State – can we get him back ASAP?
Holy shit that was terrible, so cheetahs offside every passage of play, we get penalized for breathing, and to top it off, the team is just plain kak, 2nd week in a row. Pathetic pathetic, to think the same team was leading superrugby before covid, how is it possible to fall this far
Considering their emasculation last week you’d think being men, the Sharks would be motived to show some sand.
So sharks have been outscored 54 points to 22 in the last three halves of rugby and 5 tries to 1. I don’t want to even talk about the number of scrum penalties the sharks have conceded and they have dropped 2 balls off the kick off. Shocking shambles
Sad to admit but manie libbok for his 8 minutes on the field was out only attacking weapon, but Frans steyn walked away with just a penalty for ending his match with a head high no arms tackle
Second half just as bad so far..
@jdolivier (Comment 28) : completely agree. Libbok was finding gaps… Noone else is close. Poor execution and skills on display
That’s a penalty try for sure
Apart from the fact that Pentxe should have just scored the try… I can’t believe that wasn’t a penalty try.
Cheetahs getting some sympathy decisions here. No matter. They aren’t playing in Europe next year anyway.
Should be another card.
If the sharks can’t score against 13 men then they might as well go home now
Tick.. Tick… Tick… And still no dominance even with extra men. Shocking
Wow we suck today, 13 men are keeping us scoreless
Scrum penalty even though they were a man short. How is that possible?? 7 men scrummed the sharks of the park. Its surreal
@Pablo Dinero (Comment 38) : just maybe our coaches need a wakeup call, no plan b and we are deteriorating as a team with each week
@jdolivier (Comment 39) : Scrum coach needs to be fired
Kumbirai is a liability. So from having a two man advantage and a lineout 5m from the cheetahs line, the sharks concede 3 points.
Just when you think it can’t get any worse…
Not playing in Durban so what will the excuse be for the terrible handling
Wow.. I’m not actually sure what we are watching here.
The lack of skill and composure is actually astounding. I’m not sure of the last time I saw the sharks play this badly.
@Pablo Dinero (Comment 44) : the absolute definition of being a sharks supporter, brilliant or atrocious, no middle ground
@Pablo Dinero (Comment 45) : Gary gold comes to mind
Perhaps but to have 8 minutes with a two man advantage and to concede 3 points… Then to see the absolutely clueless play since its really disheartening
@Pablo Dinero (Comment 48) : Am is a great player, but not successful as a captain
What the hell was Tambwe doing? He ran for the gap not for either man. Very lucky to have that pulled back for forward… Which it wasn’t
Get the under 21’s some game time and forget about this season, the other top 3 unions will murder us by 50 plus points with this performance
@jdolivier (Comment 49) : agreed. He has no ability to fire up his troops.
Cheetahs have been pretty filthy
Wow. The win over the bulls feels like a lifetime ago…
Thank goodness that’s over and the cherry on top was giving the cheetahs the bonus point. Very touching.
This has to be the worst performance this millennium.what makes it worse is that the players honestly don’t seem to care how crap they are playing.
@Pablo Dinero (Comment 5) : why even attempt getting a home semi, not this team
Cheetahs have become dirty players. The Sharks have no forward dominance or even parity most of the time. That doesn’t excuse McGoon’s copious errors in refereeing. The back line has no dominance to go forward behind. Libbok was the best Sharks player out there tonight until he got concussed. Steyn should have been yellow carded. That said, what would the Sharks have managed to do with the penalty…nothing. They should have been awarded a penalty try, but McGoon is a stupid referee.
@SeanJeff (Comment 8) : Agreed bit the ref could have awarded 3 penalty tries and the sharks would still have lost. A single interception try in the 4th minute of the game is a poor return for some golden opportunities. Getting out scrummed by 7 men, 5m from the cheetahs line was a shocker. The cheetahs try with 1 min on the board was a sign of things to come.
@SeanJeff (Comment 8) : the prop should also have had a red for the head high shoulder charge on Meyer, that being said, 30 min with 14 men and 8 with 13 and we couldn’t score, sums up the utter lack of caoching coupled with zero leadership in the squad, van der westhuizen sucks, but he couldn’t influence the cowardice and ineptitude of this farce of a performance
@jdolivier (Comment 7) : it won’t happen now and actually even qualifying for the semi’s is beginning to look doubtful. Sharks will have to produce a miracle to beat the stormers and then the way they played today can we when think a win over Griquas is likely?
@Pablo Dinero (Comment 11) : it is so disheartening that this team had a chance of being in the superrugby finals before the “coof” and now they are losing matches they should win without breaking a sweat
Completely agree. I know its been disruptive, but players who were doing so well are off the boil. The sharks scrum is awful being belief and the backline looked clueless when they finally got the ball. I think is clear the sharks miss guys like Tyler Paul and André Esterhuizen… Badly. Also they should try and get Le Roux Roets back from the pumas. Priority number one had to be some decent props though. Holy cow the bunch they currently have are sh1te
That was terrible. How have we gone from what we were in Feb/March to this? I turned it off after we couldn’t score with a 2 man advantage. Tight five is a big problem.
@Pablo Dinero (Comment 11) : quite doubtful on both counts at the current level of play
What a let down…
Do we even have a fwds coach?
@Original Pierre (Comment 16) : Brent Janse van Rensburg apparently, and even a scrum coach, Etienne Fynn who in the media after the lions debacle promised a much improved set piece for the cheetahs match