Garth April starts for Sharks Vs Toulouse.

April at 10 for Sharks

• 09 Feb 2016

 241  1Garth April at Sharks training

Garth April will start at flyhalf in a new-look Sharks side to face Toulouse in a friendly match on Thursday.

April replaces the injured Pat Lambie, while Marcell Coetzee comes into the side and will take over the leadership reins.

Etienne Oosthuizen is the only player who started against Toulon last Friday who retains his place, with coach Gary Gold opting to give as many of his available squad members a run on their French tour.

The players unavailable due to injury or Saru limitations are Beast Mtawarira, Coenie Oosthuizen, Francois Kleinhans, Giant Mtyanda, Lwazi Mvovo, Lambie and Ruan Botha.

'The match against Toulouse gives us another opportunity to test new combinations and work on certain areas that we were not as accurate in last Friday,' Gold said. 'Toulouse boast a good squad and they’ll provide the ideal test and preparation we require, ahead of the start of Super Rugby.'

Sharks – 15 Willie le Roux, 14 Wandile Mjekevu , 13 Heimar Williams, 12 Johan Deysel, 11 S’bura Sithole, 10 Garth April , 9 Michael Claassens, 8 Christiaan de Bruin, 7 Etienne Oosthuizen, 6 Marcell Coetzee (c), 5 Hyron Andrews, 4 Dave McDuling, 3 Lourens Adriaanse, 2 Franco Marais, 1 Juan Schoeman.
Subs: 16 Kyle Cooper, 17 Gerhard Engelbrecht, 18 Daniel du Preez, 19 Jean-Luc du Preez, 20 Cobus Reinach, 21 Stefan Ungerer, 22 André Esterhuizen, 23 Paul Jordaan, 24 Odwa Ndungane, 25 Joe Pietersen.

Has anyone heard of this guy? 
I see Joe Pieterson is on the bench- to probably cover flyhalf and fullback.
Joe Pieterson is solid, albeit not spectacular player. He is certainly a good decision-making player and could do well at flyhalf in the absence of Lambie. 
Hopefully, April is the real deal. The coaches must see something in him to start. 
I hope I am wrong about Gary Gold- he does seem like a decent person and is trying hard etc. Maybe with the right players- Gold could outperform the fans expectation.
The Sharks Squad for SuperX is looking solid. --------

That Toulon win gave me some hope, I sort of wish it didn't though because now I know they'll disappoint and show it was a one off 

 SB
This guy April played some Vodacom Cup for the Golden Lions when he was still Under 21 - but did not make an impression.   He was released from his Golden Lions contract in 2012 and went to Boland where he played in four Vodacom Club games and after injury he dropped from the scene.  In 2014 he played Club Rugby in the WP and was then signed a two year contract with the Sharks in 2015 - but never played for them in Vodacom Cup Rugby.
He is already 24 years old and I think he is not a house on fire.  The game will be broadcast in SA on Thursday night and I will look out and see what he is worth.  However, I do not expect anything much.
The guy to look out for is Johan Deysel = he had a reasonably good WC for Namibia and was the guy who scored the try against the AB's in that competition.  The rest of the team is basically second-stringers and I would be surprised if they make any impression on Thursday - if they do they must have more depth than I thought.