Ken Borland

The Sharks were back at training at Kings Park on Monday, savouring their convincing 27-10 win over the Cheetahs in Bloemfontein, but a far bigger challenge lies ahead this weekend when they take on the Chiefs, who were impressive in beating the Stormers 28-19 in Cape Town.

A backline featuring Sonny Bill Williams, Aaron Cruden and Tim Nanai-Williams is enough to turn defenders’ legs to jelly and Sharks assistant coach Sean Everitt was not sugar-coating the challenge on Monday.

“We are much happier after this past weekend, we haven’t performed quite as well as we’d wanted to, but going to Bloemfontein is never easy, so it was great to come back with a bonus-point win.

“But the Chiefs backline can score a lot of tries and the most important thing for us is to prevent them from attacking from turnovers, that’s when they can be really dangerous. The names say it all, Aaron Cruden, Sonny Bill Williams and the likes,” Everitt warned.

As the Chiefs showed against the Stormers, scoring from poorly-directed or inadequately-chased kicks is meat and drink for them, but Everitt said kicking would still be an important part of the Sharks’ game-plan.

“I think if you look at the stats, teams are losing games when they are playing too much rugby in their own half and not in the right areas of the field. So we want to get that right and ensure we take our opportunities when they arise.

“Against the Cheetahs, with the ball we had and the fact we didn’t want to play too much rugby in our own half because we were punished when we did that in the first round, it was part of our strategy to kick quite a bit. But we won that kicking battle I felt, territory counts for a lot, so it was part of our plan,” Everitt said.

Much of that success has been down to the brilliance of flyhalf Pat Lambie, whose confidence has just been growing exponentially since he kicked that last-minute penalty to beat the All Blacks last October.

“Pat is on top of his game, he’s fighting to go to the World Cup as the number one flyhalf. We’re very happy with how he’s going and his game management has been outstanding, and obviously with the leadership role he plays, he just keeps getting better and better,” Everitt said.

The one major negative to come out of the weekend, though, was the knee injury suffered by lock Pieter-Steph du Toit. Initial reports suggested the form second-rower will be out for eight months, having re-injured the same knee that kept him out for most of last year, which would take him beyond the end of the World Cup in October.

But Everitt said there was still a small element of hope for Du Toit, who went to see his specialist in Cape Town on Monday.

In terms of a replacement, there is zero chance of Stephan Lewies playing yet because he is still four weeks away from action as he recovers from knee and shoulder surgery, while Willem Alberts’ absence due to a hamstring strain has been put at two to three weeks.

Veteran Marco Wentzel is therefore likely to catch a start, with the “Giant”, Lubabalo Mtyanda, returning to the bench.

Loose forward Tera Mtembu and centre Paul Jordaan are the other players still on the injured list, while utility forward Etienne Oosthuizen, the former Brumbies player who Jake White brought to the Sharks, has returned to the training field.

George Coetzee rode a wave of huge home club support to shoot a five-under-par 65 and win the Tshwane Open by one stroke in a thrilling final round at Pretoria Country Club yesterday.

Coetzee began playing golf at the Waterkloof course and won his first tournament there as a 10-year-old, so the genial 28-year-old had plenty of support as he edged out Jacques Blaauw, who fired a tremendous 61, with a birdie on the 17^th hole.

“I loved the fans, when I was growing up you dream about playing in front of galleries like that and the crowd just seemed to get bigger and bigger. There were hundreds of people following our group and I recognised a lot of them. I never thought, as a kid, that I’d be playing a European Tour event at my home club, so it’s unreal to win here,” Coetzee said after finishing on 14-under-par 266.

Coetzee was one of six golfers who shared the lead after the third round, but with Craig Lee (70), Adrian Otaegui (71), Wallie Coetsee (76), David Horsey (73) and Trevor Fisher Junior (75) all fading away in the final round, it was left to Blaauw, who teed off an hour-and-three-quarters before Coetzee, to set a target with a blistering round that included four successive birdies from the sixth hole and two-in-a-row to finish.

In the end it came down to whether Coetzee, who had picked up four birdies in five holes from the sixth to catch Blaauw on 13-under, could gain one more shot in the closing holes, or alternatively falter as he pushed too hard.

But that’s where home course knowledge kicked in and Coetzee showed great temperament. The crucial shot was his second on 17 after he hit his driver well right, between the trees, but a delicate, skilful chip left him with a five-foot putt for birdie.

“I had a good game plan mentally and I was waiting for 17, which is usually a birdie chance. It didn’t happen exactly how I wanted, but I know there are gaps between the bunkers there. Today it was about mixing aggressiveness with cleverness and I was very happy with my ball-striking, I was loving my driver. Most of my wins have been due to my putting, so it was nice for my ball-striking to come through today,” Coetzee said.

Not allowing his hand to be forced was crucial for Coetzee and he showed similar patience at the start of his round when he reeled off five straight pars before a monster-drive at the sixth set up his first birdie.

“I’ve played those first three holes a thousand times and they’re probably the trickiest on the course, and then the fourth they made a par-four this week. So that’s not where I wanted to make my charge, it’s easy to drop shots there, but I knew when I stepped on to the sixth tee that it was time,” Coetzee said.

Being able to deliver the goods under pressure also means the changes to Coetzee’s game, which includes simplifying his pre-shot routine again, are bearing fruit.

South Africans Dean Burmester and Tjaart van der Walt both shot three-under 67s to join Lee in a tie for third on nine-under, while Otaegui dropped back to eight-under to share sixth with Jaco Ahlers.

There was more relief than elation for Cell C Sharks coach Gary Gold after his team bounced back from an opening loss to secure an impressive bonus-point win over the Emirates Lions  in their weekend SuperRugby match at Kings Park.

“I think relief is the word, it’s certainly not a big celebration. It’s such early days now, you can throw all these cliches around and say you move on from a loss like last week. But you don’t really move on from a loss like that. It was disappointing and really it was our own fault.

“We didn’t perform well enough last week, so it was weighing heavily on our minds. That’s the psychological challenge you have as a coach, it’s hopefully to give the players confidence that they’re good enough and they can come back from something like that,” Gold said after the Sharks’ 29-12 triumph.

The scrum was the outstanding facet of play for the Sharks, with the Du Plessis brothers, Jannie and Bismarck, showing their class and being ably assisted by loosehead Dale Chadwick as the highly-rated Lions set-piece was dismantled.

Lions coach Johan Ackermann pinpointed Bismarck du Plessis’ return at hooker for the dramatic improvement in the Sharks scrum.

“Bismarck made the big difference there,” said Ackermann. “He outsmarted our young front row and was exceptional. Those scrum penalties against us were very disappointing, we are far better than that, but credit must go to the Sharks.”

For the Sharks to score four tries in sodden conditions that almost saw the game postponed was also highly impressive and Gold admitted it was far more than he had hoped for.

“I didn’t ever imagine we would score four tries in those conditions, but I’m very grateful it did end up that way. I thought we managed the game well to be able to keep the momentum that got us to those opportunities that led to the tries.

“I was happy with the urgency and the general play all round. So I’m very proud of the performance,” Gold said.

The former Springbok forwards coach also praised Bismarck du Plessis for his display, especially since his shoulder is still troubling him.

“His presence was a factor, there’s no doubt about it, because we know what a world-class player he is for so many reasons. He threw into the lineouts particularly well today, he led the team well and obviously he stabilised our scrum,” Gold said.

Other high points for the Sharks were the burgeoning relationship between halfbacks Pat Lambie and Cobus Reinach, which looked a marriage made in heaven in conditions in which their tactical play was always going to be vital.

Lambie made liberal use of the crosskick to set up two of the Sharks’ tries, while opposite number Marnitz Boshoff failed to adapt his game-plan to the wet conditions, and the superb displays of the Du Plessis brothers, lock Pieter-Steph du Toit, Reinach and Lambie are surely not going to go unnoticed by Springbok coach Heyneke Meyer with the World Cup in the northern hemisphere later this year.

Kagiso Rabada chose the day when South Africa’s pace bowling reserves were brought into question at the World Cup to announce himself as the potential successor to Dale Steyn with a magnificent nine-wicket haul to bowl the bizhub Highveld Lions to a crunching win over the Dolphins in their Sunfoil Series match at the Wanderers on Sunday.

Rabada took nine for 33 in 16.2 overs – the sixth-best innings figures in the history of domestic A Section cricket in South Africa – to give him a brilliant match analysis of 14 for 105.

This is the best return in the history of franchise cricket, improving on the 14 for 110 Steyn himself took for the Titans against the Eagles in Bloemfontein in 2007/8.

Rabada’s extraordinary performance – three of his victims were caught behind the wicket, three were bowled and one was trapped lbw – skittled the Dolphins for 134 in their second innings.

This meant that the Lions had a nominal target of 16 to win the game, which openers Stephen Cook and Rassie van der Dussen quickly knocked off for a 10-wicket win that increases their lead at the top of the log to just over 17 points.

And it wasn’t the case that Rabada took advantage of a Wanderers greentop either: there was some steep bounce, but apart from that the enormously-talented 19-year-old showed his ability to get swing, hit good areas and bowled with impressive pace on a flattish pitch.

Rabada made an early start to his amazing demolition job when he removed Daniel Sincuba (4), edging a lovely away-swinger to wicketkeeper Dominic Hendricks, with his second ball of the day.

An over from Rabada went by without incident, but he then picked up another scalp in his third over of the day, Cody Chetty (5) edging an easy catch to first slip.

An exceptional catch by Van der Dussen at backward point gave Rabada his fourth wicket, Morne van Wyk dismissed for seven, and the St Stithians product marked the occasion of his maiden 10-wicket match haul by shattering the stumps of Keshav Maharaj (5), who was way too late on his shot.

Graham Hume was trapped on the crease and lbw for nought, while opener Divan van Wyk, who held on for 204 minutes in scoring 56, eventually played on.

History was then made on the famous Wanderers turf when Tshepo Moreki was bowled for 2 and last man Daryn Dupavillon (0) spliced a simple return catch to Rabada, who is the youngest South African to take 13 wickets in a first-class match.

He joins an elite group of just 25 other bowlers who have taken 14 wickets or more and there can be no doubt Rabada is on his way to even greater things.