Sharks vs Cheetahs match Preview for Saturday 14 February 2015

Sharks captain Bismarck du Plessis has never been drawn to hyperbole so when he declares that his team is ready for war, the Super Rugby opposition had best draw up their shields and raise their swords for an onslaught, starting with the Cheetahs at Kings Park tomorrow (5pm).

The battling Bok hooker reckons the Sharks will bring something significantly different to their challenge this year, thanks to a pre-season that was focussed on overwhelming the opposition through greater urgency in every department of the game.

“There are 15 captains across Super Rugby who will be telling you how well prepared they are, and that might well be the case, so all I can tell you is that the Sharks are going to bring a greater intensity to their game than ever before,” Du Plessis said. “That is what is going to be different about the Sharks this year – we will have a higher work rate than ever before and will bring a new intensity to our play. We are going to give this campaign our very best shot. We are ready.”

This year’s competition is unique in that it has the backdrop of the ever encroaching Rugby World Cup in September, and Du Plessis reckons the country’s five franchises must rally to the national cause.

“The last time South Africa won the World Cup, there were two of our teams in the Super 14 final (in 2007, when the Bulls edged out the Sharks in Durban),” the Sharks captain said. “I think Super Rugby form is a pointer to the World Cup, but the ironic proviso is that the our players must not have an eye on the World Cup – we have to concentrate on doing our best with what is in front of us week by week, and then the World Cup will take care of itself.”

Du Plessis skippers a Sharks team that has just about picked itself in the absence of Japan-based players in centre Frans Steyn, wing JP Pietersen and No 8 Ryan Kankowski, plus injured loose forward Willem Alberts. The return of Steyn after the end of the Japanese knock-out Cup will be a key boost to the one vulnerable area in the Sharks team – the midfield made up of comeback kid Waylon Murray and youngster Heimar Williams. It should be kept in mind that coach Gary Gold has centre Paul Jordaan not far off a comeback from a serious knee injury and SA Under 20 star Andre Esterhuizen in reserve.

Otherwise it is will be hard for the Cheetahs coaching staff to pinpoint a weakness in a team that has a world class halfback pairing in Patrick Lambie and Cobus Reinach and a Test standard tight five in the front row of the Du Plessis brothers and Tendai Mtawarira, and a second row of the ravenously hungry Pieter Steph du Toit (he missed 2014 through a knee injury) and former England international Mouritz Botha.
The loose trio is not half bad either, comprising last year’s Currie Cup captain, Tera Mtembu, newly recruited Pumas flank Renaldo Bothma and the world class openside Marcell Coetzee.

The Sharks enjoyed a pre-season that was a revelation for the manner in which technical director Brendan Venter, under the guidance of Japan-based Gold, focussed on madly intense sessions that included the ball at all times, and allowed the players much of the day off to recover, which is a big departure from the regimented “12-hour days at the coal face” under Jake White.

The Sharks players are in the starting blocks to start a new era under Gold, but against the Cheetahs tomorrow, how will they balance out their much-publicised ambition to play an attacking game with the practicalities of playing rugby in Durban in sticky February?

“That is a very good question,” said Gold himself. “That’s the difficulty of wanting to play a certain brand of rugby in the humidity of the East Coast summer. It is fact that we have put a marker down in the sand and said we want to play an exciting, attacking brand of rugby in 2015. We believe we need to score more tries regularly to progress further in the play-offs.

“But it comes down to decision-making in the right areas of the field and when opportunities present themselves,” Gold said. “It’s not necessarily about the number of plays you execute because you can have advanced nowhere after 50 phases. For us, it is going to be about massive intensity in the first four or so phases of play, because that is when statistics show that 75 percent of tries are scored.”

Sharks: 15 SP Marais, 14 S’bura Sithole, 13 Waylon Murray, 12 Heimar Williams, 11 Lwazi Mvovo, 10 Patrick Lambie, 9 Cobus Reinach, 8 Tera Mtembu, 7 Renaldo Bothma, 6 Marcell Coetzee, 5 Pieter-Steph du Toit, 4 Mouritz Botha, 3 Jannie du Plessis, 2 Bismarck du Plessis (capt), 1 Tendai Mtawarira.

Substitutes: Kyle Cooper, Dale Chadwick, Matt Stevens, Marco Wentzel, Jean Deysel, Conrad Hoffmann, Fred Zeilinga, Odwa Ndungane.

Cheetahs: 15 Willie le Roux, 14 Clayton Blommetjies, 13 Francois Venter, 12 Michael van der Spuy, 11 Raymond Rhule, 10 Joe Petersen, 9 Sarel Pretorius, 8 Willie Britz, 7 Oupa Mohoje, 6 Jean Cook, 5 Francois Uys (capt), 4 Lodewyk de Jager, 3 Coenie Oosthuizen, 2 Torsten van Jaarsveld, 1 Danie Minnie.

Substitutes: Stephan Coetzee, BG Uys, Maks van Dyk, Carl Wegner, Boom Prinsloo, Tian Meyer, Willie du Plessis, Cornal Hendricks.

BY Mike Greenaway