Ken Borland

Phepsi Buthelezi will return as captain for the Sharks in their Currie Cup rugby match against the Lions at Ellis Park on Saturday and he said a meeting with one of the leading referees had clarified for the squad that they have to improve their discipline and be better advertisers for a freeflowing game.

The Sharks will be looking to maintain their grip on second place against the last-placed Lions, following their victory over the Free State Cheetahs in Durban last weekend. But although the Cheetahs played with 14 men for most of the second half due to a red card, the Sharks kept them in the game with their own rampant ill-discipline, conceding far too many penalties and two yellow cards of their own in the tense closing stages.

That has to change, according to Buthelezi.

“We had Stuart Berry, who refereed our match against the Cheetahs, come chat to us and give us feedback. He told us that the way they are refereeing is to promote running rugby, which will be good for the product when people come back to stadiums. So that puts the defending team under the pump, but the biggest thing is our discipline, we can’t get sucked into silly errors.

“That just gave the Cheetahs life last weekend. So our main focus this week has been on keeping the number of penalties lower, that’s been a huge problem for us. It’s definitely a massive issue, something we’re constantly working on. We can’t afford to give away so many penalties, that made it hard for ourselves. The discipline issue is massive,” Buthelezi stressed.

Along with the in-form eighthman, halfbacks Grant Williams and Lionel Cronje, who played so well in the win over the Bulls two weeks ago, return to the starting line-up. Workhorse lock Le Roux Roets is going to take a break, allowing Gerbrandt Grobler to come in for his debut and Sharks coach Sean Everitt has rotated his hookers, with Dan Jooste starting and Kerron van Vuuren on the bench.

Although the Lions are out of contention for the semifinals, Buthelezi knows his team are going to have to put in a big effort to maintain their challenge for home-ground advantage in the playoffs.

“The Lions are obviously going to be desperate, they are a quality team who have just been unfortunate in terms of results, things just haven’t gone their way. We’re expecting them to have some main players back and they’ve been kicking a lot less lately, so that means lots of running and tackles. We are going to need to execute our game-plan, especially on attack, to put them under pressure,” Buthelezi said.

Sharks team – Anthony Volmink, Yaw Penxe, Jeremy Ward, Marius Louw, Thaakir Abrahams, Lionel Cronje, Grant Williams, Phepsi Buthelezi (c), Henco Venter, Dylan Richardson, Emile van Heerden, Gerbrandt Grobler, Lourens Adriaanse, Dan Jooste, Khwezi Mona. Bench: Kerron van Vuuren, Ntuthuko Mchunu, Wiehahn Herbst, Thembelani Bholi, Jeandre Labuschagne, Sanele Nohamba, Boeta Chamberlain, Murray Koster.

Bulls coach Jake White says the Lions team they will meet at Ellis Park on Saturday are a dangerous try-scoring force because of a mix of returning to their old way of playing and the open nature of the Currie Cup this year.

The Lions have climbed to fourth on the log and have scored four tries in four of their seven matches, including 12 tries in their last two games. It has been reminiscent of the triumphant era under former coach Johan Ackermann between 2013 and 2017, when they dominated South African rugby with their expansive style and fluent attacking play.

“Looking at where the Lions are on the log, I have no doubt that they will try and score as many tries as they can. They are the one team who has really troubled us before our last game at Loftus three weeks ago and we struggled in our last match at Ellis Park in May. But as long as we are aware of the challenge, we should be okay.

“I think having guys like Warren Whiteley and Julian Redelinghuys involved in the coaching, the Lions will play like they used to. I am sure they are pushing that style of play because they had massive success with that as players. But the competition itself is also going like that with referees being very strict on certain aspects that create more space.

“That allows teams to have more of a go and the conditions we’re playing in – in the afternoon – it’s like school rugby, at the best time of day. So it’s not only the Lions scoring a lot of tries, ball-in-play time is up to 36-38 minutes and that shows the tempo of the games, the pace and the skill levels. It’s nice for everyone,” White said on Friday.

Nevertheless, White has decided to make nine changes to his starting line-up for the match and is confident he can get full value out of swapping his bench players and his starters from the weekend win over Griquas.

“You always want the best players on the park, but I’m comfortable these guys will bring energy. Hopefully we can use the bench wisely, they are there if we need them, or we can even spare them if the starters have played well enough. We have a nice fresh team which is important because we could have 12 consecutive weeks of play later on.

“We don’t want to get caught short in two months time with injuries and having to select players who have not played enough. I rate all the guys coming in very highly, they are very good rugby players, and you don’t only want to give them a chance when the game is already won. The end of the game is different because there’s more fatigue. We want to grow our depth and confidence,” White said.

Bulls team – 15-David Kriel, 14-Madosh Tambwe, 13-Lionel Mapoe, 12-Harold Vorster, 11-Kurt-Lee Arendse, 10-Chris Smith, 9-Keagan Johannes, 8-WJ Steenkamp, 7-Muller Uys, 6-Arno Botha, 5-Janko Swanepoel, 4-Walt Steenkamp, 3-Jacques van Rooyen, 2-Jan-Hendrik Wessels, 1-Simphiwe Matanzima. Replacements: 16-Schalk Erasmus, 17-Gerhard Steenekamp, 18-Mornay Smith, 19-Ruan Nortje, 20-Elrigh Louw, 21-Zak Burger, 22-Johan Goosen, 23-Stedman Gans.

Serviced by a steady flow of quick ball, British and Irish Lions fullback Josh Adams and wing Duhan van der Merwe both scored hat-tricks as the tourists hammered the Sharks 54-7 at Ellis Park on Wednesday night.

The Covid crisis surrounding this series meant the Lions had to make eight late changes to their originally announced team and they had just one backline reserve on the bench. It only seemed to fuel them to higher levels of excellence.

Playing with tremendous skill and tempo, the Lions were ruthless and clinical in scoring eight tries. Their aggressive defence took away much of the time and space the Sharks are used to normally and the tourists only conceded a single try.

The prolific Adams, who has now scored eight tries in three appearances for the Lions, and Van der Merwe both scored in the opening 10 minutes to immediately settle the tourists and banish all thoughts from their minds of the tremendous disruption they have suffered over the last 24 hours.

With Owen Farrell, one of the late changes at flyhalf, producing a tactical masterclass, the Lions scored two more tries before halftime to lead 26-0 at the break.

The Sharks scored first in the second half, flank James Venter rounding off a lovely try that featured slick work down the right touchline by Jeremy Ward, Werner Kok and Manie Libbok.

But then they ruined their promising moments with basic errors and soft moments, succumbing to the pressure exerted on them by a top-quality international side. The Lions scored four more tries, the last when they deliberately played with just 14 men. From a powerful scrum, Adams had space aplenty to complete is hat-trick.

It is highly unlikely that Sharks coach Sean Everitt sleeps well tonight. With their first foray into Europe a couple of months away, the Sharks were way off the pace. Clearly, playing against sluggish South African teams has got them into bad habits and a false sense of security.

Scorers

Sharks – Try: James Venter. Conversion: Curwin Bosch.

British & Irish Lions – Tries: Josh Adams (3), Duhan van der Merwe (3), Bundee Aki, Louis Rees-Zammit. Conversions – Owen Farrell (3), Finn Russell (4).

Despite the daunting task ahead of them and the fact that they are playing away from their Kings Park haven, coach Sean Everitt said the Sharks are as excited as puppies about taking on the British and Irish Lions at Ellis Park on Wednesday night.

“We spoke about the opportunity to make history and if we win we will forever be in the history books as the first Sharks or Natal team to beat the British and Irish Lions. The guys are excited and have watched a lot of Northern Hemisphere rugby so they know the players and there are no false pretences of the challenge in front of us. But if we can stop their momentum and power game then we are in with a chance.

“Unfortunately we can’t play in Durban, but we’ve been in Johannesburg since Friday so our acclimatisation will be spot-on and we’ve generally done pretty well up here, we feel comfortable playing on the Highveld. Personally I remember watching the 1974 Lions playing against Border, so I have a lot of respect for the team and I’m just so glad that the game is going ahead,” Everitt said.

The Lions, meanwhile, have added a pacy, marauding loose trio to their mix for the meeting with the Sharks, selecting Tom Curry, Josh Navidi and Sam Simmonds.

Behind a top-class tight five, they will certainly have plenty of opportunity to fulfil coach Warren Gatland’s mandate to “express yourselves”.

A hamstring strain to Robbie Henshaw, who added plenty of muscle to the Lions’ midfield against Japan, has given a chance in the outside centre berth to Elliot Daly, who has mostly been a wing or fullback under England coach Eddie Jones.

Everitt knows that the only way to counter the individual star quality in the Lions team is through a concerted team effort; the sum of the Sharks’ performance must be greater than its parts.

“The focus is always on team first and if anyone goes off programme we will pay the consequences. We need all 23 players on match day to reach our peak performance and I don’t think anyone will go off-programme because we all know we need a massive team performance and not playing as individuals.

“We have to manage the ball well in our own half and not just throw the ball around and expect things to happen. They have three very good loose forwards and good lineout jumpers and we need to survive at the set-pieces and then look after the ball when we have it and then make sure we are playing in the right areas,” Everitt said.