Ken Borland

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The Cell C Sharks will play an attacking brand of rugby in next year’s SuperRugby competition because the strength of their squad demands it, new director of rugby Gary Gold told The Citizen yesterday.

Gold will continue the Sharks’ elusive search for a maiden SuperRugby title after one season under Jake White that saw them lose in the semi-finals but also alienate many supporters with a conservative game plan.

The former Springbok assistant coach says, with the talent at their disposal, the Sharks will simply have to be more ambitious. Gold inherits a mighty pack featuring half-a-dozen Springboks and an exciting backline bursting with playmakers like Cobus Reinach, Pat Lambie, Odwa Ndungane, JP Pietersen and Lwazi Mvovo.

“One of the characteristics of a winning team is that they score tries and we’re not going to beat New Zealand teams 9-6 with three penalties, so we have to score tries. It’s easier said than done and I’m not a rugby romantic, but the Sharks are lucky to have a great squad of players so we can aspire to a brand of rugby that means scoring tries.

“We’ll still look to play in the right areas of the field, there will be a level of pragmatism, but our starting point is that we’re going to put a lot of time and energy into our attack so we can score tries. You have to tailor-make your game-plan to the players at your disposal, but with this great squad we simply have to embrace more attacking skill,” Gold said.

Gold, who was appointed by the Sharks two weeks ago, said all the pre-season planning for SuperRugby was in place, with the squad training from November 17-December 17 and then gathering together again on January 5. While the experienced Currie Cup, Premiership and Japanese league coach is inheriting a star-studded squad, he said he will be looking to make small-scale changes.

“There won’t be much recruitment, but there are two or three positions we’ve identified where we need more strength in depth, which will be important when you consider the demands of the competition. Another of the reasons champion teams are successful is that the difference between their first-choice and second-choice player in any position is not so big that it makes a difference to the performance of the team,” Gold said.

The 47-year-old is also a proponent of a rotation policy, which should avoid the burnout that seemed to afflict the Sharks towards the end of this year’s SuperRugby campaign.

“Another characteristic of successful SuperRugby and Premiership sides is that they embrace a rotation policy. A first-choice player can start for three weeks and then you can give him three days off because he knows he’ll be coming off the bench for 30 minutes the next weekend. He knows he’s still the number one in his position but he’ll appreciate the break and will be a better performer when he comes back because of it. I’m personally not a big believer in playing people into the ground,” Gold said.

The new director of rugby confirmed that the three coaches who guided the Sharks through the Currie Cup – Brad Macleod-Henderson, Sean Everitt and Paul Anthony – would serve as his assistants before taking the reins again for next year’s Currie Cup.

With Brendan Venter on board as a consultant and plans to bring an overseas attack consultant to Durban for a short while later this year, Gold is keen on getting different ideas into the system.

“As the director of rugby, it’s very difficult to coach and deal with recruitment, agents or budgets towards the end of the year and I also want to support the junior team coaches. Hopefully I’ll get a really good working relationship going with Brad, Sean and Paul in SuperRugby and I want us to get together with all the coaches, as a group, and shoot the breeze or share ideas. The U19 coach might have ideas that will work with the senior team … ” Gold said.

Through Springbok call-ups, injuries or emigration, the Cell C Sharks lost 16 players between the SuperRugby and Currie Cup competitions and coach Brad Macleod-Henderson believes the players who stepped in did a reasonably good job considering what inexperienced respondents they were.

Frans Steyn, Ryan Kankowski, Jean Deysel and Keegan Daniel all moved to Japan; Pat Lambie, Cobus Reinach, Tendai Mtawarira, Bismarck and Jannie du Plessis, Marcell Coetzee and JP Pietersen were all called up to the Springboks; Anton Bresler (Edinburgh), Charl McLeod (Grenoble) and Wiehahn Herbst (Ulster) also decided to play overseas; and Pieter-Steph du Toit and Willem Alberts were unable to play due to injury.

Nevertheless, the Sharks managed to finish third on the Currie Cup log before going down 50-20 to a rampant Lions team at Ellis Park last weekend. The likes of centre Andre Esterhuizen, scrumhalf Cameron Wright, prop Thomas du Toit, lock JC Astle and loose forwards Ettienne Oosthuizen, Khaya Majola and Tera Mtembu all made big strides during the campaign and experienced players like SP Marais, S’Bura Sithole, Lwazi Mvovo, Kyle Cooper, Lourens Adriaanse, Stephan Lewies, Marco Wentzel and Jacques Botes stepped up to the plate as well.

“I’m reasonably happy with the season, we had quite a few young guys in the team and we had to bounce back from a rough start. We were playing some nice rugby towards the end, winning in Pretoria and Cape Town is always going to take some doing, but unfortunately we didn’t play anywhere near to our potential in the semi-final. But credit to the Lions, who dominated us in all phases and, although there was a glimmer of hope in the second half, they took it to a different level at the end of the match,” Macleod-Henderson told The Citizen yesterday.

With director of rugby Jake White leaving the Sharks four weeks ago and no replacement yet named, Macleod-Henderson was unable to answer questions about his future but he did feel several players had shown in the Currie Cup that they can perform at SuperRugby level.

“The Currie Cup was a great opportunity for guys to show their quality – players like Tera Mtembu, who was outstanding as captain and eighthman, an older head like Marco Wentzel showed he still has the attitude and heart to succeed at that level, and Kyle Cooper, who didn’t get as much opportunity in SuperRugby as he would have liked.

“The Currie Cup players have shown what they can do and SuperRugby is a very tough competition, 16 matches and then the knockouts, a real marathon,” Macleod-Henderson said.

The coach said questions over the Sharks’ defence, the number of unforced errors they made, and the scrum, which was badly exposed by the Lions, will need to be answered before the next SuperRugby campaign.

An announcement is expected in the near future as to White’s successor, with Gary Gold, the former Springbok assistant coach and head coach of London Irish, Western Province, Newcastle, Bath and Kobelco Steelers, still the favourite to be appointed.

Replacement Fred Zeilinga’s seven penalties put the Cell C Sharks’ noses in front in a photo-finish to their Absa Currie Cup match against the Xerox Golden Lions at King’s Park last night, as the home side scraped through 26-23 to keep their chances alive of hosting a semi-final.

The Lions had no answer to the Sharks’ determination to keep ball in hand, their superiority at the breakdown led by Jacques Botes, who was ‘celebrating’ the last home game of his illustrious career, and the often perplexing decisions of referee Pro Legoete.

The game was often scrappy as both sides gave away plenty of possession through handling errors, and the lineouts also seldom went to plan for the team throwing in.

The Lions enjoyed a 13-11 half-time lead as wing Ruan Combrinck read a blindside move by the Sharks perfectly and raced away for a 60-metre intercept try, with Marnitz Boshoff, the number 15 on his back, converting and adding two penalties.

A bullocking run by centre Andre Esterhuizen had given the Sharks their only try, but he was yellow-carded shortly afterwards for elbowing a tackler.

But the Sharks chipped away in the second half with Zeilinga adding penalties in the 46^th, 49^th, 54^th and 60^th minutes. An electrifying try by the Lions, centre Stokkies Hanekom dotting down after superb offloads by Franco Mostert, Jacques van Rooyen, Kwagga Smith and Ross Cronje, gave them a tiny glimmer of hope, but a good looping move by the Sharks created space on the outside and another penalty for Zeilinga, who took over the kicks from flyhalf Lionel Cronje towards the end of the first half.

The Lions were also hurt badly by replacement flank Derick Minnie being sent off to the sin-bin in the 68^th minute for killing the ball in the ruck, when it looked very much like a tackle situation.

Scorers

Sharks – Try: Andre Esterhuizen. Penalties: Fred Zeilinga (7).

Lions – Tries: Ruan Combrinck, Stokkies Hanekom. Conversions: Marnitz Boshoff (2). Penalties: Boshoff (3).

The departure of Jake White has been dealt with and the Cell C Sharks team is fully focused on the vital Absa Currie Cup match against the Xerox Golden Lions at King’s Park tonight, according to the coach Brad Macleod-Henderson.

The meeting with the high-riding Lions is crucial for the Sharks because defeat will end their hopes of hosting a semi-final.

“The news about Jake broke on Monday and we had a team meeting and that issue has now been dealt with. We all know it’s a huge game against the Lions and the focus is now on that,” Macleod-Henderson told The Citizen yesterday.

The Sharks received good news yesterday with Kyle Cooper passing a fitness test on his knee and the experienced hooker will be important in the scrums, where the Sharks will have to match the powerful Lions unit, and the lineouts, where the KwaZulu-Natalians have been the form team in the Currie Cup.

“In the last couple of games, the lineout has worked very well for us, but we want to put pressure on the Lions all over the field. We want to limit their opportunities to get the ball because they’re not shy to attack, even from their own half. There will always be opportunities for us to move our ball or kick the ball, and we want to get the balance right,” Macleod-Henderson said.

The excellence of the Sharks’ lineout, led by veteran Marco Wentzel and now featuring another Springbok in Stephan Lewies, has caused Lions coach Johan Ackermann to field Willie Britz, who has regularly played lock for the Gautengers, at eighthman.

“The more lineout options we have the better because then we’ll be under less pressure. The Sharks have an old head there in Marco Wentzel and he has been one of the best lineout jumpers for a long time. Lewies is a Springbok as well, so it’s a quality lineout and Willie Britz will be important for us,” Ackermann said yesterday.

The Lions coach is certainly expecting the forwards to be the big workers tomorrow night and has once again named a complete front row on the bench, with the versatility of Mark Richards, Howard Mnisi and even Kwagga Smith enabling him to go for a five-two split.

But Ackermann is also keen on his team maintaining their attacking mindset and the instinctive, energetic linking play between forwards and backs that has served them so well.

The Sharks have also been producing good all-round rugby and the stage is set for one of the most intriguing clashes of the season.

Teams
Sharks: 15-SP Marais, 14-S’bura Sithole, 13-Paul Jordaan, 12-Andre Esterhuizen, 11-Lwazi Mvovo, 10-Lionel Cronje, 9-Cameron Wright, 8-Tera Mtembu, 7-Etienne Oosthuizen, 6-Jacques Botes, 5-Marco Wentzel, 4-Stephan Lewies, 3-Lourens Adriaanse, 2-Kyle Cooper, 1-Thomas du Toit. Replacements – 16-Monde Hadebe, 17-Dale Chadwick, 18-Matt Stevens, 19-JC Astle, 20-Khaya Majola, 21-Conrad Hoffmann, 22-Fred Zeilinga.

Lions: 15-Andries Coetzee, 14-Ruan Combrinck, 13-Lionel Mapoe, 12-Stokkies Hanekom, 11-Courtnall Skosan, 10-Marnitz Boshoff, 9-Ross Cronje, 8-Willie Britz, 7-Warwick Tecklenburg, 6-Jaco Kriel, 5-Franco Mostert, 4-Martin Muller, 3-Ruan Dreyer, 2-Robbie Coetzee, 1-Schalk van der Merwe. Bench – 16-Armand van der Merwe, 17-Julian Redelinghuys, 18-Jacques van Rooyen, 19-Derick Minnie, 20-Kwagga Smith, 21-Mark Richards, 22-Howard Mnisi.