If the Sharks are to end their five-match losing streak they are going to have to make some history in Sydney at a ground where they have been notoriously unsuccessful.
Super Rugby is full of anomalies and tales of “bogey” teams and grounds, but it takes a lot to rival the fact that the Sharks have beaten the Waratahs just once at the Sydney Football Stadium in 20 years of Super Rugby, going back to the start of the competition in 1996.
Stranger still is that the Sharks’ win there in 2000 was the only match the Sharks won that year, making Hugh Reece-Edwards the only South African coach who has a better record overseas than in South Africa.
Under coaches Dick Muir and then John Plumtree, the Sharks had some rough decisions go against them in Sydney that cost them victories, but the fact remains it is the Sharks’ ultimate bogey venue.
And the Waratahs will have a similar feeling about Durban, where they have mustered only a draw, while last year, when they won the title, they got a hiding at Kings Park which resulted in their obstreperous coach, Michael Cheika, throwing a notorious tantrum in the coach’s box.
He liked former Brumbies coach Jake White as much as he did losing, the pair having had a number of public spats in Australia.
And making it harder for the Sharks this week is the fact that the Waratahs are coming off a loss to the lowly Western Force, who have now beaten the New South Wales team three times in a row, much to Cheika’s chagrin.
The champions are now in seventh place, just outside the cherished “top six” of the play-offs, and they are going to want to pull finger against the 11th-placed Sharks, having just lost to the stone-last Perth team for the second time this year.
Waratahs prop Paddy Ryan told the Sydney Morning Herald the Force had bullied them up front in the 18-11 loss, and they were not about to let the Sharks pack do the same.
“We could not keep the scrum up. There were too many collapses, and we can’t have that happening when our job is to set a good platform for the backs,” Ryan said.
“Our forwards are disappointed with our set piece in general. The line-outs were not good either,” he continued.
“Our role is to create that platform for one of the hottest backlines in Super Rugby. And I don’t feel we did that last week.”
The Waratahs are two points behind the sixth-placed Bulls, and with the Pretoria team now on tour, the Sydneysiders want to climb into the Sharks and hope the Bulls lose in Auckland.
There is still plenty of rugby to be played before the play-offs, but Ryan said the Waratahs did not want to leave their charge too late.
“Our forwards are focusing on our ‘deficiencies’ of last week ahead of the visit of the Sharks, who we know will be confrontational up front,” he said.
“In Perth last week, the Force put us off playing our own game.
“We allowed them to do that. The most disappointing thing beyond the result and beyond any other aspect of the game was the fact that we didn’t play the way we have played the last two to three years, and we have to snap out of that,” Ryan said.
From the Sharks’ camp, it was “all quiet on the western front”, with no updates on injuries other than the good news that none of the numerous walking wounded from the Hurricanes game are on their way back home.
There is also the strong possibility that burly flank Willem Alberts could return to action after missing the match in Wellington through injury. - The Mercury