After a two break caused by Covid the Sharks travel to Cape Town for the semi-final against WP. Sean Everrit has selected what must be close to the strongest side the Sharks have on their books.
However the Sharks pack will have to come to the party with a much improved effort in especially the scrums after struggling against the likes of Free State, Bulls and Lions in this department. Giving away too many scrum penalties (especially in crucial areas) makes it impossible to build up momentum.
The other area the Sharks need to improve on is retaining their own possession at the breakdown. The team has been quite successful at poaching the opposition’s ball either through players like Am and Richardson or counter-rucking, but with ball in hand tend to get isolated at crucial times giving away breakdown penalties.
Fortunately the Sharks have a history of winning crucial games down in Cape Town, and they can pull off another win on Saturday to be the last team that wins at Newlands.
- Ox Nche
- Fezokuhle Mbatha
- Thomas du Toit
- JJ van der Mescht
- Ruben van Heerden
- Dylan Richardson
- Henco Venter
- Sikhumbuzo Notshe
- Sanele Nohamba
- Curwin Bosch
- Yaw Penxe
- Marius Louw
- Lukhanyo Am (C)
- Sbu Nkosi
- Aphelele Fassi
Replacements:
- Daniel Jooste
- Mzamo Majola
- Michael Kumbirai
- Hyron Andrews
- Thembelani Bholi
- Jaden Hendrikse
- Jeremy Ward
- Manie Libbok
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Hi all- any opinions on the Sharks buyout two weeks ago? Surprised no discussion on it!
@Here be dragons (Comment 1) : personally I think its incredible. Maybe we will be able to retain local talent and more importantly bring back some talent. How I would like the Du preez brothers and Esterhuizen back
@durbsguy (Comment 2) : Esterhuizen for sure, but not so much the twins. For all their size, they often lost the ball in contact. I’m enjoying the quicker game that the Sharks are trying to play.
@Here be dragons (Comment 1) : I think it’s a great thing. We might not see immediate changes on the pitch but there’s now a lot more top-class business knowledge in the management team. It’ll grow the business and give us money to recruit top talent.
Esterhuizen is still the same hothead. Got himself a ban for striking recently. Same goes for DuPs. Continual penalty machines or even cards. Dumping the entire DuP family was a great move for us IMHO. We do need a good 12. I’d like Pretorius at WP.
Knock-on and wp infront of ball completely ignore. Here goes Marius
@byron (Comment 5) : that after player dived on sharks player on floor
@byron (Comment 6) : a couple of his penalties have been suspect, both sides
Marius has now missed 3 head high tackles………
@jdolivier (Comment 7) : never seen 10 consecutive penalties before …. This is becoming a farce
@byron (Comment 9) : the speed at we are penalized in the ruck has to be some sort of record
Not sure about Nohamba continuing with these short box kicks inside our 22. Nohamba and Bosch need to start dictating the game tactically – Sharks playing way too much in our own half
Started well in the scrums and discipline, but now giving away too many penalties
Some amazing penalties from Bosch. Sharks lead the first half 9-6 when they have never even been in the WP 22 once
Too many basic errors stil plaguing the sharks
Both sides are miles off the Bulls, to be honest.
@Here be dragons (Comment 14) : the drizzle is definitely making the performances look a lot worse
Bosch is kicking off the tee well, but on field he’s having a bit of a shocker imho.
Better get used to drizzle for the northern hemisphere rugby!
Newlands, our home away from home!
All I can say is if SARU want to remain competitive, the standard of refereeing needs to be improved. The standard displayed in both matches was terrible.
All the Sharks forwards fronted up plus an excellent defensive effort all round. Clever decision making at the breakdowns and Ruben van Heerden disrupted the WP lineout well. Amazing long range place kicking from Bosch to kick the Sharks ahead by 9 while spending 80% of the game in their own half.
I would say that WP had a slight edge in the scrums but some of the decisions that went against Thomas could just as well have gone against Vermaak.
IMO the short box kick tactic from inside our 22 is very risky. I don’t recall us regathering any of those short kicks – one of which lead to a silly penalty that allowed WP to draw the game at 9 all. We have Bosch that can boot the ball for miles – would use him now and again to kick us out of trouble.
Bosch (and for that matter the entire back line) looked very uncomfortable with ball in hand with some really poor passing above and behind players.
Would pick the same team with perhaps Hendrikse starting ahead of Nohamba. Stick to the same tactics because the Sharks look terrible with ball in hand at the moment. The players will have to cut down on the silly penalties and concentrate for the entire game. We got away with some really dof decisions at times.
Siya Kolisi is conming to the Sharks???
@Dancing Bear (Comment 20) : Just rumors at this stage – mainly because Siya’s agent is part of the consortium that bought the majority stake in the Sharks franchise.
I would not say no to him if he does join, but I would rather contract a decent tight head as well as a loosehead
@Bokhoring (Comment 21) : To clarify as backups – quite happy with Thomas and Ox