Ken Borland

Gauteng may be the financial capital of South Africa but Durban is rapidly becoming the rugby capital as the Sharks confirmed the mega-signing of Springbok lock Eben Etzebeth on Thursday, on a long-term deal that will keep him at Kings Park from July until 2027.

Thanks to the cash cow that is their equity partners, Etzebeth will move from being one of the highest-paid players in France while he was with Toulon, to one of the highest earning players in South Africa, as befits a veteran of 97 Tests and a perennial contender for any World XV. Although the Sharks cannot come close to matching the reported R20 million a year Toulon were paying him, Durban offers other perks in terms of lifestyle and networking with the range of leading businesspeople who have invested in the franchise.

A happy Etzebeth will mean the Sharks’ tight five will be getting a considerable boost.

“I’m looking forward to coming to the Sharks and living in Durban, and I expect this to be a wonderful chapter in my career,” Etzebeth said in a statement released by the Sharks on Thursday.
“Family and being closer to home was a big motivating factor, as well as being able to represent a great team like the Sharks. I can see things are happening there.

“Siya Kolisi is there and we’ve been friends since were in the provincial U19s together and now we will get to play for the Sharks together.

“Along with my Springbok team-mates Bongi Mbonambi, Makazole Mapimpi, Lukhanyo Am, Thomas du Toit, all guys I know well. I’m also really excited to meet a few new guys,” Etzebeth said.

The 30-year-old admitted to being impressed with what the Sharks have managed to build so far.
“I’m looking forward to playing at the Shark Tank, the local derbies against the Bulls, Stormers and Lions will be awesome,” Etzebeth said. “I’m looking forward to being back in South Africa and playing in front of the Sharks fans there.”
“I chatted to Siya, I gave Thomas a call and chatted to them. Off the field things work, on the field we can see things are working and the team is doing well.

“I enjoyed watching the last game against the Bulls and the victory away from home, and this is a brand I definitely want to be associated with and which I’m proud to be joining,” Etzebeth said. “Attracting a player of Etzebeth’s calibre underlines the importance the Sharks place on building a winning squad, which is aligned to the vision of being the biggest franchise in world rugby,” said CEO Eduard Coetzee.
“We’re also focused on building a strong group of players for a number of years, not just the immediate future, and Eben’s long-term contract reflects this.”

The Sharks are hoping that all their excellent programmes to assist their players with life outside rugby will clinch the deal with Eben Etzebeth, leading to the Springbok powerhouse lock joining them after the end of Toulon’s season in June.

The Sharks, thanks to their equity partners, offer enormous networking and advisory possibilities with an array of leading businesspeople and that could be of interest to Etzebeth, who has been one of the best-paid players in France and is now in the second half of his career.

Eduard Coetzee, the CEO of the Sharks, confirmed on Tuesday that the franchise are putting together an offer for arguably the best lock in the world, who was earning about R20 million a year at Toulon.

“We are speaking to Eben, he wants to come back and we will put our best foot forward,” Coetzee told The Citizen. “It’s about what we can offer him on and off the field.

“Eben will be turning 31 in October and we can give him a start for life after rugby. We can match him up with businesspeople who can help him – in the pharmaceutical world, clothing, property etc.

“Hopefully that can make up for the loss of income he will have coming back to South Africa. And with the endorsements and commercial opportunities he can get here, hopefully he can earn something that is not a long ways off what he gets there in France. So we feel there is definitely a chance that we will get him,” Coetzee said.

The salary cap (R65m) that SA Rugby have imposed on their franchises as they try to compete with the big-spending European clubs is a frustration, and the Sharks also have to ensure they do not anger the existing superstars in their squad by paying the likes of Etzebeth considerably more than they are earning.

“Of a probable current World XV, we have Siya Kolisi, Makazole Mapimpi and Lukhanyo Am, and now you add Eben Etzebeth,” Coetzee said. “And you can’t pay one of them twice as much as the others.

“You need a level of consistency in terms of what you are paying the top guys. Fortunately we have some credit still in the salary cap and Eben has got himself out of his contract with Toulon.”

The CEO also cleared up any impression that Neil Powell being parachuted in as director of rugby when he had initially been signed as defence coach would be cause for any anger by head coach Sean Everitt.

“John McFarland left for a long-term deal and Warren Whiteley stepped in as defence coach until Neil arrives in September, and he is doing really well. We felt the gap was in terms of managing the entire rugby programme.

“It has been a consultative process and Sean has a very difficult job managing two teams out of one squad. But Neil runs systems really well and he is very strong on culture and work ethic.

“So Neil will run everything outside of the day-to-day coaching. This will cause the least disruption and his strength is people-management, we need someone to run the whole system from juniors up the pipeline,” Coetzee 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.

The Bulls produced a performance full of senseless mistakes but played enough decent rugby to just see off the Lions 21-13 in their United Rugby Championship derby at Loftus Versfeld on Saturday.

The home side endured a torrid first quarter, especially in the scrums where Lions tighthead Carlu Sadie was a massive figure both figuratively and literally. And the Bulls kept being forced to scrum because they made a number of handling errors – half-a-dozen in the first 15 minutes alone.

Considering their messy start, the Bulls were fortunate to be only 6-0 down after the first quarter, Lions flyhalf Tiaan Swanepoel slotting two penalties.

While the Bulls were full of ambition in terms of playing ball-in-hand, expansive rugby and getting into the wide channels, they did it in rather frantic fashion and it was only once they started to keep the ball a bit tighter in the initial phases, earning the right to go wide, that they started to gain momentum in the game.

Keeping the ball tight among the forwards brought the first try when flank Marcell Coetzee forced his way over after a pick-and-go from a penalty under the poles.

And the Lions suffered a key blow just a minute before halftime when Sadie went head-first into a tackle, conceding a relieving penalty. The Bulls used a blindside move at the lineout, drawing another penalty, for offsides, and then their rolling maul went over for an important try, scored by hooker Johan Grobbelaar, to give them a 14-6 lead at the break.

There was little respite available for the Bulls in the second half though, as the admirable Lions pack continued to give their all. The Bulls continued to struggle in the scrums, even though referee Aimee Barrett-Theron gave them a couple of fortunate penalties, and the home side were just lucky that the Lions’ execution was poor, especially at lineout time.

It was typically scrappy derby rugby, brightened only by fullback Kurt-Lee Arendse’s try in the 49^th minute. It was a turnover penalty won by Coetzee that led to concerted pressure by the Bulls, centre Lionel Mapoe’s slick pass giving Arendse the space to drift outside his man in wonderful fashion and dart over for the try.

The Lions eventually gained some reward for their dominant scrum in the final quarter, allowing them to set a lineout maul inside the Bulls’ 22, from which lock Ruben Schoeman scored to cut the gap to 13-21.

But the Lions failed to hang on to possession long enough in the remaining eight minutes to put the Bulls under further pressure.

Scorers

Bulls – Tries: Marcell Coetzee, Johan Grobbelaar, Kurt-Lee Arendse. Conversions: Morne Steyn (3).

Lions – Try: Ruben Schoeman. Conversion: Tiaan Swanepoel. Penalties: Swanepoel (2).