Ken Borland

While most of the attention around the Sharks has been focused on the lack of clinical finishing in their attack, the gaps in their defensive matrix are also a concern as they go into their vital United Rugby Championship match against the Dragons at Kings Park on Friday night.

As coach Sean Everitt has pointed out, while the Sharks were extremely wasteful of their opportunities in last weekend’s loss against Edinburgh, they also leaked three tries in sodden conditions, so it’s not as if their defence was faultless either. And the Dragons scored three tries against the Bulls at Loftus Versfeld to show that they have the weaponry to hurt the home side if they lose their shape in defence.

“In the last week everyone obviously looks at the opportunities we created on attack and were not converted, but we also need to look at the tries we conceded,” Everitt said.

“We let in three tries, so that means we need to score four to win the game, but that’s very difficult in these conditions.

“There were small details we fell short on in terms of taking our opportunities, but it’s a massive issue that we conceded three soft tries that we could have handled normally,” Everitt said.

The Sharks coach seldom volunteers much comment on individual performances, but given the spotlight on Curwin Bosch, Everitt felt the need to set the record straight on his starting flyhalf.

“There’s been a lot of talk about Curwin and we need to be factual,” Everitt said. “His kicking has been really good until last week and his kicking stats are the best we have.

“Against Zebre Parma he controlled the game and attacked much better than he had before. In terms of game-management, he did really well against Edinburgh.

“He showed his class in tough conditions and we were able to win 65% territory. Plus no-one sees the leadership he puts in through the week, how he performs well in training,” Everitt said.

Victory against the Dragons is crucial for the eighth-placed Sharks because they host the in-form Lions in their next match, before closing the round-robin campaign with games against top sides in Leinster, Connacht and Ulster.

As a human being, Mark Boucher seems to lack the gene for a fear of failure which made him one of the most tenacious cricketers around, but now as a coach he has admitted to frustration that that is exactly the weakness his Proteas team showed as they crashed to a series loss to Bangladesh in humiliating fashion in the third and final ODI at Centurion on Wednesday evening.

Choosing to bat first, South Africa’s batsmen folded meekly to 154 all out in 37 overs. Bangladesh them showed them how to bat on the SuperSport Park pitch as they raced to victory in just 26-and-a-half overs with just one wicket down.

“We lacked intent, we went to sleep after a good start to our innings,” Boucher said after the loss. “We wanted to take the game forward, you do need to take some risks, but there was almost a fear of getting out.

“It was as if we were not batting to set a total, which Bangladesh showed should have been more than 300, but batting to not get out, and then we spiralled into a total collapse.

“We need to have belief in how we play, we’ve played spin very well in places like Sri Lanka but then we come back here and go back to old ways. We have to have faith to play the way we want to play.

“We wanted to be proactive, we have worked hard on shot-selection and the guys know they have the armoury. But it’s like a mental block. We need to put the fear of failure out of our minds, the fear of getting out,” Boucher said.

What is baffling, however, is that much the same team beat India 3-0 in January and they should have had the confidence of a billionaire on the front cover of Forbes magazine. Boucher said the vagaries of form had also played a role in the shock series defeat.

“Against India we had guys in great form and there were big partnerships. In this series we lost an aggressive player like Aiden Markram whose form is worrying, so new guys come into the team.

“In the back of their heads they probably want to get runs to prove that they belong here, and that brings in a bit of fear. Maybe they are too scared to play the way they should.

“So it comes down to a lack of form and belief,” Boucher said.

As they prepare to face the Sharks in a vital United Rugby Championship derby at Loftus Versfeld on Saturday, the Bulls’ focus seems to not be so much on the way they play but the speed with which they execute their plans.

Sluggish would be one of the words to describe their grinding 21-13 win over the Lions last weekend, and it is clear coach Jake White has instructed his team to lift their intensity and therefore their pace of play when they take on the Sharks.

“We will take some confidence from the Lions game, but it is clear we still have a lot to learn,” scrumhalf Embrose Papier said. “It was a very slow game and we need to work on our breakdown.

“It’s going to be a tough game and a big physical battle against the Sharks because they are a really good side with a lot of Springboks. But as scrumhalves we have to be really fast. Our forwards do too, they need to set quickly because the Sharks scrumhalves like to snipe as well.

“We have taken quite a few positives out of the Lions game but there’s also been a lot to work on. It was a slow game, but when teams come up to Loftus and the altitude here, we must lift the tempo so we make it hard, especially for teams from the coast,” Papier said.

Apart from injecting more speed into his service from the breakdown, Papier has also been putting plenty of work into his kicking game with consultant Fourie du Preez, the great former Springbok scrumhalf.

“I just played running rugby at Garsfontein school and at U19s and U21s, but I made lots of mistakes and that’s why coaches devise plans. So I play more in the system now and I can still do my own thing in the system.

“I’ve been trying different styles of box-kicks and I now feel comfortable with the way I’m kicking. I need to do the basics right and stay in the system, get the balance right between passing and kicking.

“Fourie is a legend with lots of experience and I am learning a lot with him. We work a lot on passing, kicking and running lines. Fourie was one of the best ever at those and he also had a big work-rate,” Papier said.

As a professional rugby player, whether the Springbok captain like Siya Kolisi or a 23-year-old still making their way in the game, you are going to have your character tested by the vagaries of the sport.

The shifting fortunes of the teams in the United Rugby Championship have illustrated this perfectly. The Bulls, who had the pressure of expectation on them having dominated the local scene for the last couple of seasons, had to come through the toughest of starts in Europe and are only now inching their way off the bottom of the log.

The Sharks, meanwhile, looked the form South African team last year, culminating in their impressive dismantling of the Bulls in Durban in December. But since then they have been held to a draw and then beaten by the Stormers, who have now overtaken them at the top of the local shield competition.

And now the Bulls and the Sharks will clash in Pretoria on Saturday, a key local derby which Bulls coach Jake White described as being like a final.

“You’re going to have your character tested at certain times but the Sharks are still a great team,” Ruan Nortje, the highly promising young Bulls lock, said on Monday at Loftus Versfeld.

“They have lots of experience, Springboks all over their team. I’m sure they will be playing good rugby on Saturday and it’s important for us to also be ready.

“I don’t think last weekend’s result will affect the Sharks in any way. I’m sure they will be ready to bounce back.

“We’ll take confidence from the points we’ve gained in the last two games against the Lions, but it was not a perfect performance by us last weekend, we struggled in many aspects. There are lots of areas we need to grow, basic errors cost us,” Nortje said.

The Lions, Stormers and Sharks have all put the Bulls under pressure at scrum time recently and Nortje acknowledged that getting the better of Ox Nche, Bongi Mbonambi and Thomas du Toit is going to be a major challenge and the Bulls need to improve drastically in that set-piece.

“We’ve been under a bit of pressure at scrum-time lately, we’ve had some injuries. But the work coaches Russell Winter and Werner Kruger are putting in will help a lot in the long-term.

“It’s been better the last couple of weeks, but we are not where we want to be yet. We’re up against an all-Springbok front row – what a challenge for us!

“We will just focus on our processes and it will be great to test ourselves against a quality side like the Sharks. Last time we struggled against them in the scrums, which gave them a lot of opportunities to get into our 22 and convert that into points.

“So a massive step-up is needed by us at the scrums, and also at the breakdown, where we struggled as well,” Nortje said.