Ken Borland

Munster might be missing a couple of their star players for their United Rugby Championship opener on Saturday, but Sharks attack coach Noel McNamara says Johann van Graan’s outfit will still have plenty of momentum behind them at Thomond Park.

Springboks RG Snyman and Damian de Allende will obviously not be playing, but there has been speculation that British and Irish Lions tourists Tadhg Beirne and Conor Murray are also not available. But Munster have been one of the powerhouses of Irish rugby and they have looked sharp in their pre-season matches.

“Munster are a very settled and successful side with South African coaches in Johan van Graan and JP Ferreira. They have been really consistent in the Pro14 and they are a momentum team, when they get momentum they are very difficult to stop. They will present a lot of challenges to us, but there’s a lot of excitement in our squad and we are looking forward to the challenge.

“That’s what the best players are motivated by – playing against the best. Munster have a big squad with a number of internationals in various positions and some very good youngsters coming through. Maybe Tadhg and Conor and a couple of Springboks won’t be there, but we won’t have any false sense of security. A young Munster team ran out very easy winners over Exeter in a warm-up game last weekend,” McNamara, who knows Munster well from his time as Leinster Academy Manager, said on Tuesday.

McNamara said playing in Europe offers the Sharks a great opportunity to show how adaptable they are, especially when it comes to the crucial breakdown battle.

“We will certainly have to adapt to referees in the United Rugby Championship, because it is a competition featuring different countries and different referees from those countries. So you can’t say this or that will be the way the competition will be blown. On any given day, you start from zero and you have to adapt and show good pictures to the referee.

“Munster are very strong over the ball, they have a high rate of turnovers, and against a jackal-based team like that you have to be on-point. In the Rainbow Cup they made an average of seven turnovers per game, so we’ve got to be accurate. And they have a variety of kickers available to them, a number of kicking threats, so it’s not just about shutting them down in one area,” McNamara warned.

The personal touch is something all businesses should strive for and building contacts between people is one of the key elements of the Vodacom Origins of Golf Pro-Am Series.

That the Vodacom Origins of Golf Series has built up considerable networks and lives up to its mantra of being Always Connected has been borne out this year by the arrival of another company famous for their customer experience and engagement skills – Momentum Metropolitan – as one of the series partners.

This week’s event at Humewood Golf Club will be the fourth with Momentum as partners and Carel Bosman, the financial services company’s Head of Sponsorships and Events, has been delighted with how well their involvement is going.

“We only recently entered the Vodacom Origins of Golf fold and it really is the ideal sporting platform, we’re already starting to engage and build connectivity with so many people. The series is pretty unique in that you have amateurs playing with the professionals and it has been incredibly positive for us being involved from the start of the season.

“We’ve been sending different internal stakeholders from our various business units to play in the events, and it has been a very positive experience for us as a corporate. We will certainly be looking to do more as Vodacom and Commissioner Thomas Abt and the Sunshine Tour are putting together some stunning properties. The Vodacom Origins of Golf Series has been going for so long, since 2004, and we feel privileged to be involved,” Bosman said.

Momentum’s investment in cricket, especially the women’s game, has been one of the success stories of the South African sports industry space, and Bosman had nothing but praise for Vodacom’s tremendous achievements with the Vodacom Origins of Golf Series.

“The Vodacom Origins of Golf Series has been a success for so long that you simply have to acknowledge what Vodacom have done. It’s been wonderful to meet their team at a regional level and sport really needs sponsors to do these sort of things. And Vodacom have obviously seen value in their strategy to stay involved for so long. What they have done has been incredible and hats off to them, long may it continue!” Bosman said.

Loose forward Kwagga Smith was bemoaning the Springbok team’s failure to control the momentum of the first Rugby Championship Test against Australia and prop Trevor Nyakane was agreeing with his colleague that momentum is where it all starts, so there is no doubt the South Africans will be looking to hit the Wallabies with a much more ferocious forward effort when they meet again in Brisbane on Saturday morning (SA time).

There has been much talk about the penalties the Springboks conceded or their feelings that they were obstructed in the aerial contests, but those are just symptoms of the underlying cause – their failure to really boss the gainline battles and seize control of the momentum of the game. Coach Jacques Nienaber mentioned this week that “the first-time tackling was not as good as it should have been”.

So the Springbok forwards need to be in Smash mode and Trevor Nyakane, who returns as the starting loosehead prop, said it needs to all start at scrum-time, where they conceded two vital penalties last weekend.

“It starts with momentum and the set-piece is exactly that. We always want to be dominant, even at a scrum on the halfway line, and it hurts us as a pack to see penalties being conceded. Australia have got their way of scrumming that they want to impose on us, and we have to try and figure out a way to counter that. They present a different type of challenge.

“But we don’t train to do anything weird like walking around or scrumming to a specific side. We believe our plan will always allow us to find a way to deal with anything a team can bring. It’s tough when you feel certain things are happening, but if you take it into your own hands then you are going away from the system and that’s when the scrum as a whole gets smashed,” Nyakane said.

For Smith, who is one of three impact loose forwards (Marco van Staden and Jasper Wiese are the others) poised to come off the bench, it is about lifting the tempo and intensity of the game.

“When us three loose forwards get on, we need to bring energy. The players who have started have worked really hard and we need to give them energy. People are looking at what Australia do off the ball to minimise our efforts, but we didn’t stop their momentum. We gave them a lot of front-foot ball and we definitely need to work on getting momentum and stopping their momentum.

“We know that most of the points at the Suncorp Stadium are scored towards the end of the game, so we need to bring energy to the pack, make sure we’re going in hard. We need to work hard in defence and get off the line. We have ball-hunters on the bench so we are set up to make an impact and get possession we can attack from, but also give our defence those extra couple of seconds to set,” Smith said.

Smith knows he is going to be in for a tough head-to-head battle with Wallabies skipper Michael Hooper, a top-class flank who will captain Australia for a record 60^th time on Saturday, surpassing the previous milestone of scrumhalf George Gregan.

“I love playing against Michael, he’s a really good player who has a lot of Test caps [112]. He gives 80 minutes every game and there was one SuperRugby season when he played every minute of every game. So you’ve got to be at your best against him, it’s never going to be easy, but our focus is not on individuals but our system,” Smith said.

Duane Vermeulen will be there to check the momentum of the Wallabies, and Faf de Klerk is also back to cause mayhem in defence, but the selection that is most telling in terms of how the Springboks want to nullify Australia on Sunday is that of three loose forwards on the bench.

Marco van Staden, Kwagga Smith and Jasper Wiese, all of whom are mobile enough to play openside flank, are all on the replacements bench named on Wednesday, and coach Jacques Nienaber confirmed this was to counter Australia’s expected efforts to speed up the Rugby Championship game at the Super Stadium on the Gold Coast.

“It’s because of how Australia play – with pace, tempo, massive continuity and an awesome skill-set as they look to stretch you from touchline-to-touchline. It looks weird to have three loose forwards on the bench, but then one of our locks is playing as a starting loose forward in Franco Mostert. So in effect we are starting with three locks.

“We think the Wallabies are going to play a quick, high-tempo game. We have a plan around the substitutions, but things happen in the game and we must adapt. So although Duane will take some time to get used to the pace of international rugby again, the number of minutes he plays will depend on how the game unfolds. But he knows the shortcuts on the field … ” Nienaber said on Wednesday.

While the attacking skills of the injured Cheslin Kolbe will obviously be missed, Sbu Nkosi is back on the right wing and the Sharks star is also no slouch in the try-scoring department. The 25-year-old Nkosi has dotted down eight times in 12 Tests, which compares very favourably to Kolbe’s nine tries in 18 Tests.

“All our players have their own ‘circus trick’, personality and energy that they bring to the team. So when you lose what one player brings, you gain something else from the other player coming in. There’s not that much to choose between our players and we are very fortunate to have that depth. Sbu has scored a few fantastic tries already, like Makazole Mapimpi, he’s also a bit of a try-machine, he knows where the tryline is,” Nienaber said.