Ken Borland

Siya Kolisi said he can’t wait to tell his grandchildren that he played with Eben Etzebeth, while the giant lock himself said he would not have reached his landmark of becoming the most-capped Springbok rugby player ever if he had not been playing alongside his captain and other South African veterans who have won the last two World Cups.

Etzebeth won his 128^th Test cap on Saturday as the Springboks hammered Argentina 48-7 to claim the Rugby Championship title in Mbombela. He surpassed the previous record of 127 caps held by Victor Matfield, between 2001 and 2015.

“To Eben, you are an yster [iron man] and I’m so grateful to have been able to walk this journey with you and I’m so grateful for your support, from when Rassie first made me captain, you have had my back. He leads the team, he is so smart and I am so proud of you. I can’t wait to tell my grandkids that I played with Eben Ysterbeth. I love you, my brother,” Kolisi said in an emotional post-match interview on TV.

Etzebeth responded in the post-match press conference, saying: “Siya and I have come a long way and he spoke so nicely about me, he is an unbelievable person. As a small boy, you just want to play for the Springboks, and to now have the most caps feels unreal, it is unbelievable.

“To do it together with this team, we are best pals, makes it even more special. I could not have done it without the team, guys who I’ve been to three World Cups with. They’ve been with me from day one and I would not have reached this milestone if they weren’t there.

“It’s also not nice if you lose on a day like this. This was a final for us and the guys made it special for me. We will celebrate very nicely, you must win in this industry to be able to enjoy your beer,” Etzebeth said.

The 32-year-old Etzebeth will now have an eye on the all-time Test record of 171 caps set by fellow lock Alun-Wyn Jones of Wales and the British and Irish Lions.

“I’m staying put for now. I will push my body as far as it can go. The ultimate is playing rugby for this team, so I will keep on pushing, training hard and trying to perform for my club [the Sharks]. Hopefully the coaches will keep selecting me,” Etzebeth said.

Matfield praised Etzebeth for being an ambassador for South Africa as a whole.

“I was very fortunate to also become the most capped Springbok in Nelspruit, taking over from another legend in John Smit. And now another legend has overtaken me, I was there with him when he was 19 years old. What Eben does on the field is incredible, but he does even more off the field and is a great ambassador for South Africa,” Matfield said.

Sharks coach Sean Everitt will be a restless sleeper this week as he considers the high penalty count recently against his team as they head for their last two round-robin fixtures of the Currie Cup.

The Sharks are currently second on the Currie Cup log, four points behind the Bulls, and they close their regular season by visiting the Lions on Saturday and then hosting Western Province on August 28.

But the Sharks had a double-figure penalty count against them in the first half of their match against the Bulls and were similarly ill-disciplined at the weekend against the Free State Cheetahs. Even though the Cheetahs had suffered a red card early in the second half, they stayed in the game thanks to the Sharks’ lack of focus and the KwaZulu-Natalians finished the 38-31 win with 13 men thanks to two yellow cards in the closing minutes.

“We’re very happy with the five points against the Cheetahs, but there are two work-ons we have to get right before playing the Lions in Johannesburg. The first is our set-pieces and the second is the number of penalties we are conceding. Those are due to individual errors and not system faults. Up to the Bulls game we had conceded the least penalties in the competition.

“After the last two games we are probably sitting top of that list now. We can’t defend for the majority of a game due to discipline issues, we need to take the pressure off ourselves if we are going to play free-flowing rugby. We need to rectify the number of penalties we’re conceding because we won’t have enough possession if we keep giving away penalties,’ Everitt said.

Nevertheless, the Sharks did score six tries against the Cheetahs, exciting wing Thaakir Abrahams scoring twice, and some of their attacking play would have been enough to make the coach purr with delight.

“Thaakir is always a threat with ball in hand, he poses big problems for the opposition. It was unfortunate that we had an injury in the warm-up and Marnus Potgieter [hamstring] was not able to take the field, but we were very fortunate to be able to bring in someone like Yaw Penxe, who has been with the Springboks.

“It was Le Roux Roets’ third game in a row so he’s getting that consistency now and he was massive in his ball-carries and setting the maul, while it was also good to see Cameron Wright back on the field and Boeta Chamberlain get a start. Dylan Richardson is blessed with an engine that can just go and go, he had a big impact defensively and with his ball-carries,” Everitt said.

If the Sharks were in any doubt about Griquas presenting them with a tough challenge in their Currie Cup match at Kings Park on Friday night, then the fact that the Northern Cape side have won their last two matches in Durban should dispel any notions of a stroll in the park.

Although the KwaZulu-Natalians beat Griquas 45-20 in Kimberley last year, Griquas won 21-18 at Kings Park in 2014, repeating their 32-30 triumph there in 2013, and Sharks coach Robert du Preez is in no mood for complacency this week.

“Griquas are a very tough side, they’ll be very physical, and we have to bring our A game to beat them,” Du Preez said.

While the Sharks at their best are able to keep ball in hand and stretch most defences, it will be up front in the trenches where Friday night’s game will be won or lost.

“We’re looking to keep ball-in-hand for longer and play more rugby, but the forwards need to create the space on the outside, they need to be direct and dominate contact. You have to earn the right to go wide.

“Griquas are always gutsy, they did well in the qualifiers and I think we’re up for a hard game. They’ll come out and play good rugby, with a lot of energy running on to the ball. They enjoy playing with the ball, they’re unpredictable and they also have their maul and their direct forward play,” loose forward Philip van der Walt said.

Griquas were the leading qualifiers from the preliminary stage, with 11 wins in 14 games, but the whole EP Kings saga has hampered the momentum they would have wanted to take into the Premier Division.

They were originally going to play the Kings in last weekend’s opening round of fixtues, but then it was going to be the Leopards and then they ended up eventually having a bye.

“It has been an unbelievably frustrating couple of weeks, it’s been difficult. We have been doing analysis on three different teams, focused training with a team picked to play the Leopards and then we did not even have a game last week. Some key players were rested for the last game of the qualifiers and the result is some players have not played for over four weeks!

“Mentally it has been difficult and after finishing as the first qualifiers we did not expect this, but we have been training hard, we refocused and will ensure we give everything to make our supporters proud of Griquas,” Peter Engledow, the coach of Griquas, told the side’s website.

The bizhub Highveld Lions and the Dolphins will enter the last two rounds of the Sunfoil Series as the only realistic title contenders after they gained contrasting victories in the eighth round of fixtures that ended on Sunday.