Round 3 is going to be problematic for some teams and less so for others

The teams that should have no problems in winning are the Chiefs (if they cannot beat the Kings they should put up the White Flag and surrender), the Brumbies, the Rebels and the Cheetahs.
That leaves three other matches with serious question marks about the outcomes.  Lets look at those four matches:-
*  The Blues - Hurricanes game is a toss-up with the favourites in my view being the Blues.  They beat the Highlanders with more ease than that team beat the Hurricanes.   The Hurricanes forwards are too weak to be a problem for the Blues and I think they would have the upper hand in that Department of the game.  Their backline is on par or better than the one of the Hurricanes,   If they come back from injury Coles and Milner-Skudder will help though, but whether that will be sufficient is another question.    
*  The Lions left SA in the hope to get 6 or 7 points on tour.  They already have 9 and will be looking for a win against the Highlanders - who lost against the Blues and struggled against the Hurricanes.   If the Lions beat them the Highlanders  will find it difficult to repeat their heroics of last year.   I suspect the Lions may have the upper hand in this game - the momentum is on their side and they are likely to destroy the Tight 5 of the Highlanders like they did with the one of the Chiefs.
*   The real crunch game this coming weekend will be between the Stormers and the Sharks.  Both teams top the logs of their respective groups.  Looking at the overall performance the Sharks may win - they have a far more comprehensive game plan than the Stormers.   The latter team has weakness in their loosies - the Du Preez twins and Coetzee are far better than Burger, Carr and the very promising Notshe.  They also have a better backline combination at 10 and 12.  De Jongh is very, very poor at 12 and Du Preez may be out with an injury at flyhalf.   The Srtormers have a  better Tight 5 combination and I doubt whether the Stormers will start with Koch and Kebble this coming Saturday and b ring on Malherbe late as they did in their past two games.
So my early winner forecast for Round 3 are as follows:-
* Blues* Brumbies* Lions* Rebels* Cheetahs* Chiefs* Sharks
The highlighted teams are certainties - the other games are likely to be fiercely contested.        

   

On another day the Sharks may have only spilled two balls and much more of their hard work would have paid off. Unfortunately the crazy amount of knock-ons makes the game very difficult to assess. Suffice to say that they beat the Jags despite all those errors. Still, it's brave to call them as winners for Saturday Mike. I'm betting against you on that one.

 Plum
The reason why I said that the Sharks could win has to do with their rather poor performance against the Cheetahs despite the fact even though they won in that game.   I do not like the way they tried to play the game - the traditional stampkar method.