Sharks preview for Match today against Force

There will be a bit of mongrel and a lot of defiance about the Sharks this afternoon when they end their tour and a difficult week off the field with a vital Super Rugby match against the Western Force.

“I think you will find we will be a different animal in this match,” promised tighthead prop Jannie du Plessis. “This game is like a Cup Final for us, for sure. We have had enough of this losing streak and away from the field, we feel people are kicking a dog when its down, and our response must be to play as if there is a bit of ‘dog’ in us.”

Du Plessis is talking about the personal attack on captain Keegan Daniel and he says the silver lining to that cloud is that it has galvanised the team.

“You attack one of us, you attack us all,” said the Springbok. “We have been having a tough time as it is. This is the worst run I have had in a black and white jersey. We lost five in a row in 2010 (the first five games of the tournament) and we also started getting criticism, but this week it has been personal. You attack the culture of the team when you say different language groups are not getting on. You must understand that we live together. We share rooms, we eat three meals a day together, we do everything together, and so we play for each other, and that is why this game is so important for the integrity of the team. We want to show that we stand as one, that we are not divided.”

Doctor du Plessis says that the Afrikaans players never for one second doubted Daniel when a story broke claiming that he had a problem with Afrikaners.

“I went to Keegan and said to him: ‘On behalf of the Afrikaans guys, no matter what is said about you, we know who you are, you know who we are; we know what we have on you and you know what you have in us. If there is anything we can say or do as Afrikaans guys, we will do it. We will support you 100 percent.”

Not long after this conversation, on social media Daniel sent out a picture of himself having coffee with Du Plessis and other smiling Afrikaans players, with the caption: “Taking Afrikaans lessons!”

“In a way this has brought us closer. It has brought down and walls and perceptions,” Du Plessis said. “We never doubted Keegan. As much as we are dependent on him leading us, he is dependent on us following him. If there were problems it would have come out in some other way, not in a newspaper back in South Africa by a reporter that has not been near us. I said to Keegan, ‘let’s not respond to it (apart from the photo), let’s respond by action on the pitch.

“So it is even more important for us to put on a winning performance – for Keegan, for the team and for the coach as well,” Du Plessis continued. “John Plumtree is hurting more than anyone. His captain has been attacked. He works with Keegan every day. Ultimately we all here for the same reason and that is to win games for the jersey. We must just produce between the four lines for both Keegan and the team going forward.”

But how do you snap out of a losing streak? Du Plessis has the answer.

“We have to have a hard-core edge to our approach. The word ‘mongrel’ springs to mind. So does ‘defiance’. But at the same time you have to remove the emotion of feeling bad about what has gone before on the tour and what games are coming up, and you have to focus solely on each moment, and how you can make a difference in each moment so that the team plays well.

“If you are Pat Lambie and you are taking the first kick-off, you focus on getting that kick-off right. If you are Jannie du Plessis, and you have to scrum and tackle and drive, you do that. If you are Franco van der Merwe and your job is to call the lineouts, you worry about the lineouts.

‘You forget everything but the moment, but you tackle that moment with a bit of mongrel!”

Sharks: 15 Riaan Viljoen 14 Odwa Ndungane 13 JP Pietersen 12 Meyer Bosman 11 Lwazi Mvovo 10 Patrick Lambie 9 Charl Mcleod 8 Keegan Daniel (capt) 7 Marcell Coetzee 6 Willem Alberts 5 Franco van der Merwe 4 Anton Bresler 3 Jannie du Plessis 2 Kyle Cooper 1 JC Janse van Rensburg.

Substitutes: Monde Hadebe, Pieter-Steph du Toit, Wiehahn Herbst, Jean Deysel, Tera Mtembu, Tiaan Meyer, Piet Lindeque

by Mike Greenaway in Perth