Home crowd and pack give Sharks the edge
by Gavin Rich 29 October 2010, 07:34
The ability of an experienced Sharks tight five to turn the tables on the Western Province unit that dominated them three weeks ago will be what decides where the Absa Currie Cup trophy will be spending Christmas.
That the two finalists in what is expected to be a classic finale to the South African home season at Absa Stadium are well matched has been documented over and over during the past two weeks.
There really isn’t much separating the teams, who both won 10 matches in the league season, lost to pretty much the same opponents along the way, and who have both played crowd pleasing rugby for much of the competition.
Perhaps a former Sharks stalwart encountered during a stroll around a La Lucia shopping centre on Thursday afternoon summed it up best -- if this game was being played in Cape Town you would almost certainly expect WP to win, but because it is in Durban, perhaps it is the Sharks who have the slightest of edges.
Certainly the Sharks have looked nearly unbeatable at home since they last lost in Durban in February, and WP knew on the afternoon that they lost to the Bulls in Pretoria, thus relinquishing their chances of topping the log, that they had made their chances of winning the Cup much more difficult.
A capacity crowd of 54 000 is expected for the match, and with WP having to return 500 of the 3 000 tickets allocated to them, you would expect it to be a predominantly Sharks supporting crowd, with the plea for the Absa Stadium faithful to wear black and white likely to fall on willing ears. So the Sharks can expect robust support at a venue that hasn’t been kind to Province in the professional era.
Having said that, the Sharks will carry a massive burden of public expectation onto the field with them, and if you run a rule through the two teams, it is the Cape side that has the advantage in experience in most key areas.
Sharks coach John Plumtree is right to have faith in his young halfback pairing of Charl McLeod and Patrick Lambie, for they have not let him down this season. Both have a lot of potential. Yet at the same press conference where he backed the youngsters, Plumtree also acknowledged that a final is different to any other game.
So he probably won’t really know if his faith is fully justified until the game has kicked off and is in full swing. Remember it was only three weeks ago Plumtree was reportedly giving serious consideration to playing former Springbok Andre Pretorius at flyhalf on the basis that he had experience of playing these big matches.
RELIABLE KICKER
Pretorius is also a highly rated goalkicker, and understandably that was another Plumtree concern when he was weighing up his options. While Lambie hasn’t done much wrong in that department, you do get the sense that WP’s Willem de Waal, who has triumphed at this level for the Cheetahs, should be the more reliable kicker if it comes to that -- and it often does come to that in a final.
The most experienced outside back in the Sharks team in this match is Stefan Terblanche, and his conversion to outside centre is still a relatively recent event.
Arrayed against that is a WP backline that includes the world rated duo of Jean de Villiers and Bryan Habana plus the soon to be world rated Juan de Jongh.
With fullback Conrad Jantjes having made an astounding comeback from the bad leg-break that he suffered last season, De Waal is in fact the only WP back who has not worn the green and gold.
In the front of the WP backline is a loose trio that if not superior to the Sharks unit, is at least on a par with the home back row. In short then, while WP will have the crowd against them, they do have the experience in most areas and definitely have the material to more than compete with the Sharks, and quieten the terraces, if allowed into the game.
And that is where the Sharks tight five hold the key -- it is they who have to prevent WP from getting into the game. Of the team that won the Currie Cup by beating the Blue Bulls at this same venue two years ago, there are only seven survivors from the starting line-up.
Significantly, however, four of those returnees are in the tight five, and that could just make a crucial difference. When the Sharks beat the Stormers in a Super 14 game in May, it was a victory set up by set-phase dominance, particularly at scrum time.
In-your-face aggression from the Sharks also had a big part to do with that result, but seeing this is a final, you would expect WP to be more prepared for that and pitch this time.
The rest of the components of the WP game will likely slip into place if their pack is allowed to settle, and although they were well beaten in this crucial area by these opponents three weeks ago, the Sharks do have the personnel to reverse the balance of power upfront this time.
If the Du Plessis brothers, Jannie and Bismarck, Beast and the two hard-working locks play to their potential, KwaZulu-Natal will again be Currie Cup Country from Saturday night.
Teams
Sharks: Louis Ludik, Odwa Ndungane, Stefan Terblanche (captain), Andries Strauss, Lwazi Mvovo, Patrick Lambie, Charl McLeod, Ryan Kankowski, Willem Alberts, Keegan Daniel, Alistair Hargreaves, Steven Sykes, Jannie du Plessis, Bismarck du Plessis, Tendai Mtawarira. Replacements: Craig Burden, Eugene van Staden, Anton Bresler, Jacques Botes, Rory Kockott, Andre Pretorius, Riaan Swanepoel.
Western Province: Conrad Jantjes, Gio Aplon, Juan de Jongh, Jean de Villiers, Bryan Habana, Willem de Waal, Ricky Januarie, Duane Vermeulen, Francois Louw, Schalk Burger (captain), Anton van Zyl, Adriaan Fondse, Brok Harris, Deon Fourie, JD Moller. Replacements: Hanyani Shimange, JC Kritzinger, De Kock Steenkamp, Pieter Louw, Dewaldt Duvenage/Conrad Hoffmann, Lionel Cronje, Paul Bosch.
Kick-off: 5.30pm
Referee: Craig Joubert
Prediction: Sharks for narrow win.