Having successfully circumvented vital off-field issues ahead of this massive clash with the Chiefs, the Sharks will undoubtedly find the New Zealanders less complying in a fixture that is shaping up to be the pick of the weekend’s games, as well as possibly season-defining for both teams.
The Sharks, interestingly, have hung on to players the South African Rugby Union had expected them to rest in terms of a pre-season agreement to preserve the country’s resources ahead of the Rugby World Cup. Notably, flyhalf Patrick Lambie, Cobus Reinach and flank Marcell Coetzee venture past the “five-match-in-a-row” barrier, and while Bok coach Heyneke Meyer will knit his brow, he privately will acknowledge that if he was still coaching the Bulls, and had a must-win home game, he would do the same.
As it turns out, Sharks coach Gary Gold has made just one injury-enforced change to the team that beat the Cheetahs last week, veteran Marco Wentzel replacing the injured Pieter-Steph du Toit.
The Sharks are super-charged to win this home game against title contenders that only a season ago had won the championship two-years-in-a row.
It is a massive home game for the Sharks, while the Hamilton team will feel they will have laid a foundation for a shot at regaining the title if they win back-to-back away games in South Africa, having already secured a mighty result in Cape Town.
“There definitely will come a time for resting our Boks,” Gold said at yesterday’s team announcement, choosing his words carefully. “I want to make it known that the Sharks are 100 percent behind the Boks in terms of resting players. It’s the right thing to do. We’ve agreed to a plan.
“From our point of view, we have a different challenge on our hands compared to other franchises,’ Gold explained. “We have the most number of Boks and our first bye is only in week 11. So the other local teams get that bye within the first five weeks.
“In terms of meeting commitments to resting players, if Bismarck for instance needs three weeks off, we will manage it, and are committed to it within the frame-work of our season” Gold said.
But petty politics will quite rightly be the last thing on the minds of the Sharks as they settle on a game plan to subdue a typically lively Chiefs side that ran the Stormers to the point of exhaustion.
What does Gold expect from them this week, even without the dynamic injured midfield duo of Sonny Bill Williams and Tim Nanai-Williams?
“It’s dangerous to predict what I think they will do,” Gold said. “They do have a number of strings to their bow. They have made comments that the last time they played here it felt like playing in the rain because of the humidity. I assume that they will kick more. We’ve prepared for whatever they bring, which will certainly include a super-charged willingness to use the ball on the turnover.”
And after five weekends of SA derbies, Gold admitted that his team now faced the real deal.
“The Chiefs have got a complexity to their game that from a coaching point of view amounts to our biggest challenge,” he said. “They’re very good in a number of areas with ball in hand, they’re outstandingly well-coached, a championship team that has won the competition twice. It’s a big challenge for us, a big step-up in terms of ball-in-hand play.” - The Star