Ken Borland

Late lapses cost the Sharks victory against the Bulls and the Stormers, and also made their game against the Lions before that closer than it should have been, and that is a key area of improvement coach Sean Everitt is looking for when his team travel to Ellis Park on Saturday for their Rainbow Cup encounter with the Gautengers.

And even though the Sharks are resting several Springboks as per the agreement with SA Rugby, Everitt has been able to name a powerful bench that should be able to have a late impact against the Lions. Their first-choice front row is amongst the replacements, Ruben van Heerden and Thembelani Bholi are seasoned forwards now, centre Jeremy Ward is an exciting runner and scrumhalf Grant Williams’ ability to lift the pace is perhaps his greatest attribute.

“When we played the Lions here at Kings Park, we had a lapse in the last 10 minutes, but the game was basically won. Fez Mbatha, Ox Nche and Thomas du Toit can hopefully be a bit of a bomb squad for us in Joburg and we can finish stronger than we have in the last few weeks, so things have worked out nicely in that regard. We’ve had a good break and have been able to work on the aspects that have let us down,” Everitt said.

The impressive coaching methods of Everitt have seen him create a real family atmosphere within the Sharks squad and he has always focused on ensuring the levels of performance are right rather than results. Now that the Sharks are under pressure to deliver a result against the Lions to keep them contending for the Rainbow Cup final, nothing will change.

“There is pressure to perform in all areas, not just to win. In some games our scrum hasn’t functioned and then our scrum will be good but the lineout fails. Results come with performance, ensuring we get those processes right first; performance goes hand-in-hand with results. We are still in the race and we have played good rugby up there recently.

“The conditions suit the exciting brand of rugby we want to play and in the last 18 months we have got the mental aspect of playing on the Highveld right. We know that the Lions have improved a lot over the last four weeks though, since our last game against them, and I am expecting a tough tussle,” Everitt said.

The Sharks have won their last four matches at Ellis Park, dating back to their defeat in the opening game of Super Rugby in 2018.

Not making use of the facilities at your disposal is one of the serious crimes of the sporting world, and Proteas captain Heinrich Klaasen said his team wasting a handful of their 20 overs cost them the match in the first T20 against Pakistan and is what they have to put right in the games on Saturday and Sunday in Lahore if they are to win the series.

South Africa fell three runs short in the first T20 in a gutsy effort, but they would have expected to chase down 170 on a good pitch for batting. But having been 51 without loss after the six powerplay overs, the Proteas then lost their way, but the next six overs saw them slip to 83 for three, leaving them to score 87 runs off 48 balls. Which was too steep a task.

“I thought that Pakistan were 10 runs short and I was very happy with our effort in the field and to be chasing 170. But it was just four or five overs in the middle where we made life very difficult for ourselves. Usman Qadir bowled two overs and had two for four in that middle phase and that put us on the back foot in the middle overs.

“Hopefully we can lift our intensity in that middle phase and then we’ll get over the line. Our standards are high, we don’t like losing although we played a good game of cricket. One or two bowling things didn’t go to plan, we need to reassess one or two overs, but I was generally very pleased with how the bowling went, and I was quite pleased with the fielding, but not the two dropped catches at the end,” Klaasen said after his first match as Proteas captain.

Among the positives in the batting was that Janneman Malan and Reeza Hendricks came off as an opening pair. Malan blazed his way to 44 off 29 balls before becoming Qadir’s first victim as he was made to look silly by a superb delivery, while Hendricks batted as the anchor and made it through to the 18^th over, scoring 54 off 42 balls. Some critics have described Hendricks’ innings as being too slow, but with wickets tumbling at the other end he obviously saw his role as being to bat for as long as possible until someone could form another partnership with him.

“I was very happy with the start and Reeza only faced 12 balls in the first seven overs, so Janneman was always going to score more quickly. Unfortunately Janneman got out when we could have completely taken the powerplay away from them, then we lost the game between overs seven and 10. We didn’t do too badly tonight, but we just slipped up in the crucial moments.

“But that’s part of the learning process and the key this weekend is to be patient and take control of those moments. Hopefully the new guys will use the opportunity to showcase their skills, we need to be adaptable and we will chop and change a few things,” Klaasen said.

A gutted Sean Everitt praised his Sharks team for a courageous effort in the Currie Cup final against the Bulls but said a piling up of mistakes in the final stages ultimately cost his side as they lost to a try right at the end of extra time.

The Sharks were leading 19-9 with 15 minutes of regular time remaining, but the Bulls scored a converted try and then a penalty in the 79^th minute to draw level. Replacement flank Arno Botha’s try with 72 seconds of extra time left then gave the Bulls a thrilling 26-19 win and the famous trophy for the first time since 2009.

“It was very disappointing, the players are gutted and I am gutted for them. They played their hearts out for 100 minutes, to be able to push the Bulls for that long, to keep them out for so long, made me really proud. But at the end of the day we let it slip. It wasn’t an isolated moment, just an accumulation of many mistakes. Our kicking accuracy wasn’t where we wanted it to be today.

“And one can debate kicking for touch instead of the poles, making it 22-9 maybe was the right way to go, but the players have a feeling on the field and last week in the semi-final we scored a try from that and no-one questioned that. Today we were a few inches short and then we had a baulk in the lineout when we were planning a trick play,” coach Everitt said after the heartbreaking defeat.

Flyhalf Curwin Bosch also missed five of his 10 kicks at goal, but a large number of those were from a long way out.

“Curwin has done it time and again for us this season, but today he was maybe not up to the standard we are used to. It was not his day, but all the kickers struggled, Morne Steyn and Chris Smith missed kicks too. Curwin is a great rugby player, missed kicks don’t make him a bad player. He has been outstanding for us this season and his game-management was generally excellent today,” Everitt said.

With a large financial injection now on the way from equity partners MVM Holdings, the future looks exciting for the Sharks and Everitt said the 2020/21 season had been a big success despite having no trophies to show for it.

“You can’t base the success of a season on one game and a helluva lot happened in 2020/21. We’ve also given a large number of players opportunities and they have grown and matured, the culture and leadership of the team has also grown, so the season was definitely a success.

“Lukhanyo Am has been a great captain, he has tremendous respect from his peers and the coaching staff do too. Through tough times, Lukhanyo has shown outstanding leadership and I would say we have had a lot of success this season,” Everitt said.

SA Rugby on Thursday submitted to the Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (Icasa) that their remedies proposed in their draft findings into the broadcasting of sport by subscription television will lead to a severe reduction in the investment by these broadcasters in professional sport and will ultimately cost the Springboks the chance of adding to their 2019 World Cup victory.

Icasa have proposed that broadcast rights should not last longer than three years, that there should be no exclusive deals and that the rights should be split between multiple packages and broadcasters.

But in public hearings held virtually on Thursday, SA Rugby CEO Jurie Roux said the ‘remedies’ would be an unreasonable burden on the federation and would mean they are likely to lose their fight for survival in these times of Covid uncertainty, while Senior Counsel Ngwako Maenetje said Icasa would be acting “irrationally” and ultra vires (beyond their powers) if they enforced the changes.

“If the regulations go through in their current format then we may never see a day like the 2019 World Cup win again. SA Rugby needs to produce compelling content that is commercially viable so we can develop the game from grassroots level to winning national teams. We are 99.7% self-funded, we only get 0.3% of our income from government, and broadcast rights bring in R752 million,” Roux explained on Thursday.

According to the SA Rugby presentation, broadcast rights make up 58% of their income, and sponsorships, which are largely dependent on TV exposure, make up another 26%.

“We are in a daily fight for survival, we are in financial difficulty having made losses between 2016 and 2018. We recovered a little profit in 2019 on the back of the World Cup and we looked forward to capitalising on that but no-one could have predicted what happened in 2020. Covid has pushed us into survival mode and had a massive detrimental effect. We’ve had to cut our budget by R1.2 billion.

“It has made insolvency a real and present danger, we’re on the brink, and if we had not been able to capitalise on broadcast rights, we would have been bankrupt by now. Exclusivity is the main source of our revenue and with less money it means there will be less rugby until we have to close our doors and only have club rugby. And then nobody will be interested in the game,” Roux said.

Judging by the presentation of Maenetje SC, Icasa would probably face court action if they enforce the regulations.

“No Regulatory Impact Assessment was conducted by Icasa, which makes the proposals irrational, they did not inform themselves of the adverse effect of these remedies. These effects are not proportional because they place such a burden on the rights holder, rather than broadcasters, such that they will not be able to sustain themselves. Icasa have paid scant regard to the dire impact we explained in our written submissions.

“By weakening one side of the equation you do not grow competitiveness in the market, SA Rugby will no longer be in a position to provide premium content and there will be an adverse impact on public interest. These remedies are irrational, not lawful and unconstitutional. They do not encourage investment so they undermine the Icasa mandate and exceed the statutory powers of Icasa,” Maenetje said.

Icasa launched their inquiry into subscription television services to ensure the broadcast market is sufficiently competitive, but Roux says “these remedies will have the completely opposite effect to their noble intentions”.

“The obligation is on the broadcasters and not on the rights-holders, which is where Icasa are acting ultra vires. There was no discussion of the economic impact in their draft findings,” Maenetje says.