Ken Borland

South African rugby teams have put the SuperRugby epoch behind them and, now that they have tasted the Champions Cup tournament, are ready to fully embrace European competition, even when it takes a team like the Sharks from the subtropical summer heat of Durban one week into the icy winter of the hilly Bordeaux region the next.

The Sharks, having marked their Champions Cup debut with an impressive 39-31 win over Harlequins at Kings Park, now take on Bordeaux Begles at the Chaban Delmas Stadium on Friday night.

“It definitely met expectations and all the hype playing against Harlequins and we made a good start, even though there was a lot for us to improve on,” hooker Bongi Mbonambi said on Tuesday from France.

“And now we take on top French players at home in front of their own crowd. The big difference is we just came from 31° in Durban to 2° at the moment and it might be zero on Friday night.

“It’s a totally different kind of cold, but we are here to make memories and make sure we are totally prepared. We’re looking forward to the challenge.

“The massive learning from the Quins game was that we can never relax, these are very good teams in this competition. They’ve been playing European Cup for longer than us, and we still have a lot to learn.

“We have to embrace it, you can’t always have home advantage. But even in tough conditions and with a hostile crowd, some of us enjoy it, it’s like what we face in international rugby. Hopefully we can teach the other players to embrace it too,” Mbonambi said.

Bordeaux lost their opening Champions Cup match away to Gloucester 22-17 in a photo finish, but the fact they were 17-5 up in the final quarter will have them extra motivated to inflict some real damage on the Sharks this weekend at home.

Bordeaux have a powerful pack and a punchy backline, and the fact that their halfbacks, scrummie Maxime Lucu and pivot Matthieu Jalibert, both played off the bench against the Springboks last month, steering France to victory, is a graphic illustration of the sort of quality the Sharks are up against.

“The French teams always hurt after losing in the Champions Cup and Bordeaux have a really good squad,” Mbonambi acknowledged. “They slipped up last weekend, so this Friday will be really tough.

“They have great loose forwards and their halfbacks played in the Test, they are really good at running the whole place, they control things.

“Their pack will definitely put our attacking breakdown under pressure and we can’t let their big forwards run at us,” Mbonambi said.

Harlequins will be the first Champions Cup team to be hosted at Kings Park, bringing an entertaining brand of rugby, but Sharks prop Ox Nche said on Tuesday that it is important they do not offer their English opponents any freedom on the field on Saturday.

Harlequins have won their last four matches and are in the top three in the English Premiership.

“Harlequins are going to be a good challenge, they have been playing well,” Nche said on Tuesday. “They are dangerous and they score most of their tries within three phases of a set-piece.

“So that’s pretty similar to the URC, relying on the set-piece to attack from, but they can also run from anywhere, they have a more attacking mindset than the teams in the URC.

“Quins are more unpredictable, they want to play with ball-in-hand and they will even run from their own five-metre line. They are willing to take much more risks.

“But they have such a successful strike-rate from set-piece that it is very important for us to put that under pressure, to disrupt their set-pieces. We have to neutralise a guy like Andre Esterhuizen, who is a big ball-carrier on the gain-line,” Nche said.

While the musical chairs that has been going on in the Sharks coaching set-up has seen the players lose a good friend in Sean Everitt, Nche said their focus is on moving on and ensuring they make their mark in the Champions Cup.

“There’s always a certain level of relationship and respect with your coach – he has confidence in you and he backed your talent – so you feel for him and his family.

“But as professionals we understand these things happen. As a player, if things don’t go well then you might not get a contract. The team is always more important, and sometimes hard things have to be done to keep getting better.

“We need to move on as quickly as possible to our next challenge and we want to show we belong in the Champions Cup. We want to put Sharks rugby on a pedestal and make our names.

“We have all our experience back and we want to see if we belong with the best in the world, and we are very positive and full of energy, we’re pretty excited,” Nche said.

Director of rugby Neil Powell is not usually a results-focused coach, but as the Sharks swop URC action this week for the Champions Cup, he admitted some relief that his embattled team had beaten the Ospreys, however ugly the performance.

The Sharks beat a depleted Ospreys side 25-10 last weekend, but that winning margin was bumped up by them scoring 14 points in the last three minutes. For those expecting a magic wand to suddenly put everything right after the departure of former coach Sean Everitt, it was a reality check.

“For me, it’s never just about the result, it’s about the effort, how the players execute their individual roles and responsibilities. But maybe this one was just about the result,” Powell said after the error-filled win.

“It was a much-needed result and it gives us a bit of a breather. It was not an easy week and the game was also not easy, plus it was such a short week playing on Sunday and then Friday.

“We can definitely step up on our execution, we will look at the things that can be a lot better. It was a stop-start game, we made too many mistakes.

“But we had good dominance, especially in the scrums and in the collisions, where our defence was really good. It’s a pity to be so on top and not get more rewards,” Powell said.

The former Springbok Sevens coach put the high error-rate down to a lack of confidence, but he is hopeful that the way the Sharks dug their way out of a pit of trouble will banish some of the self-doubt ahead of their debut Champions Cup clash with top English side Harlequins at Kings Park on Saturday.

“The basic errors are maybe because the players are looking for confidence, confidence has a lot to do with it. Hopefully we can build on the bit of confidence and momentum we got in the last 10 minutes against Ospreys,” Powell said.

“You score one or two tries and you start to get that confidence back, and I think then you’ll be a lot more accurate. There were definitely encouraging things we can build on.

“We made a lot of changes to the team so we did not have the synergy we would have liked, but hopefully we can keep changes to a minimum now for the match against Harlequins.

“The Champions Cup is a difficult competition, almost between the level of the URC and Test rugby, and Quins are a good side playing a good brand of rugby. We definitely need to step up,” Powell said.

It’s probably advisable not to watch the Sharks play rugby at the moment because it’s a bit like watching someone struggle with a serious illness in hospital; their latest display being an ugly 25-10 win over the Ospreys at Kings Park in which they scored 14 points in the last three minutes.

The sacking of head coach Sean Everitt was not the instant panacea some people expected it would be, as the Sharks were still severely lacking in polish, error-ridden in the red zone and disorganised on attack. The fact that they were only leading by one point at home after 76 minutes against a side that had won just one of their previous eight matches says it all.

Of greatest concern was the number of basic errors they made, far too many to be considered serious contenders for any silverware.

That the Sharks had more than enough chances to put the Ospreys away was thanks to the utter dominance of their scrum and their excellent defence leading to several turnovers at the breakdown.

And yet, despite enjoying 60% of possession and territory in the first half, they could only lead 6-0 at the break through two Curwin Bosch penalties. The flyhalf was playing his first URC game of the season after a fractured arm in pre-season, and showed enough glimpses of class to suggest the Sharks should persevere with him in the No.10 jersey.

The Sharks were then rocked soon after the break when Ospreys scored a try of genuine quality. Eighthman Morgan Morris and prop Rhys Henry burst clear from a lineout inside their own half, and then there was great work down the short side by the forwards, leading to scrumhalf Matthew Aubrey being stopped just short of the line by a great Bosch tackle. The ball was recycled though and flyhalf Jack Walsh put in an excellent crosskick for wing Luke Morgan to score.

The Sharks did at least provide a prim and proper response as flank Sikhumbuzo Notshe turned over possession from the restart and then scored from close range after a maul.

Despite their dominance, the Sharks were left with a really nervous finish as the replacement front row conceded a scrum penalty and Morris forced his way between two poor tackles on the tryline to score and close the gap to just one point again with 13 minutes remaining.

The Sharks did at least finish strongly, sealing the win in the 77^th minute as Bosch ran around to find a hole in the defence and score after the forwards had bashed away at close range against a stout Ospreys defence. Replacement flank James Venter then added some gravy as he forced his way over for a try.

But there was little for director of rugby and new head coach Neil Powell to feel comfortable about.

Scorers

Sharks – Tries: Sikhumbuzo Notshe, Curwin Bosch, James Venter. Conversions: Bosch (2). Penalties: Bosch (2).

Ospreys – Tries: Luke Morgan, Morgan Morris.