The Sharks will embrace the Ellis Park atmosphere during Saturday’s Currie Cup semi-final against the Lions rather than be intimidated by the infamous roar of the home fans.
And it is also true that Ellis Park will have more than a fair share of Sharks supporters, given the large fan base the Durbanites enjoy in Johannesburg.
“The guys really enjoy playing away from home, funnily enough,” backline coach Sean Everitt said yesterday.
“In the Currie Cup, we’ve slipped up once at home and once away, and in the Super Rugby competition we did well on the road, so we have proved to be a group that enjoys travelling.
“Ellis Park is one of the world’s great stadiums when it is packed, as it will be for a home semi-final, and the players relish going there,” he said. “One of the motivations of playing professional rugby is to be part of the big occasions, and this will be one of them, and we’ve had some good results at Ellis Park in the past, just as we have had at Loftus Versfeld and Newlands.
“We really are fortunate in that we enjoy playing at the special stadiums in the country, rather than fear them.”
The Sharks would obviously prefer to be playing at Kings Park, another of the world’s great stadiums, but providence has dictated otherwise. At the weekend, the Lions put 40 points past a Cheetahs team that the Sharks have struggled against this season, and that alone will keep the Sharks “honest”, as the Kiwis say, despite the Sharks having beaten the Lions at Kings Park a fortnight ago.
“Probably the most relevant thing out of that game is that both teams know what to expect from each other,” Everitt said. “There are certain things we can take out of that game, and I’m sure they have had a look at us and will pinpoint some areas to target. But I don’t think that result in Durban will make too much of a difference. The Lions really played well against Free State on the weekend, so they’ll take a lot of confidence out of that win.”
And the Sharks will do the same from their second-half performance against an admittedly second-string Western Province team at the weekend.
“We will take a lot of heart out of keeping them scoreless in the second half, but we mustn’t be fooled – that wasn’t their ‘A’ team,” Everitt cautioned. “We were a lot better in the second half when we enforced our structures and starved them of a lot of ball. We had most of the territory in the second half so they weren’t really able to play, so that’s something we want to build on for Saturday’s semi-final.”
The Sharks’ set piece was powerful in that second half and gave the platform for 20 unanswered points, but at the same time the Lions’ scrum and line-out was dominant against the Cheetahs.
“The Lions are scrumming really well, their set-pieces are working for them and they’re an extremely dangerous team when they get front-foot ball from their set-piece,” Everitt said. “So we’re going to have to deliver a massive defensive effort to stop their momentum because they can play scintillating rugby when they’re on the front foot. They’ve scored a lot of tries this season, so it’s going to take a massive effort to stop them.” - The Star