Ex Supersport
The Cell C Sharks will definitely play a Vodacom Super Rugby play-off match at home this season, but thanks to Jaco Taute’s last gasp drop-goal at Growthpoint Kings Park, there is now a chance they will be playing that knock-out game a week before they would have wanted to.
The DHL Stormers’ win has taken away the Sharks’ position of having destiny in their own hands. The Waratahs are two points adrift of them in the top bracket on the overall log, but they have a game in hand. What that effectively means is that if the Waratahs win their home game against the Brumbies on the day the Springboks play Scotland in Port Elizabeth, they will be on top of the log when the teams return for the last two full rounds of the competition.
And the Crusaders can knock the Sharks back to third place if they beat the Hurricanes and score four tries while doing it that same weekend. Sound like an unlikely scenario? It is not unlikely enough for the Sharks’ comfort, for they face a tough finish to the competition themselves, with an away match to the Cheetahs being followed by the league finale against the MIGHTY Stormers in Cape Town.
The Stormers have been good at home recently and should have Eben Etzebeth and a few other first choice players back from injury by then. So the Sharks would have been hoping to have clinched the deal, in other words have made sure of top spot, before going to Newlands. Whatever happens in the weeks before then, that looks unlikely following their defeat to the same Stormers team in Durban.
They could well be going to Cape Town playing to avoid a drop to third, which would mean they don’t advance straight to the semifinal, but play what would effectively be a quarterfinal round against the team that finishes sixth.
Theoretically, that could still be the Vodacom Bulls, but that looks unlikely after the Pretoria team were upset by the Lions in Johannesburg in a game that was of far superior quality to the one played at Kings Park later in the evening.(REMEBER ALSO THE BULLE HAVE TO PLAY THE MIGHTY STORMERS AT NEWLANDS!!)
The result at Ellis Park meant the Sharks started the Stormers game assured of winning the South African conference for the first time, and when they do play their play-off game, be it in the quarterfinal round or semifinal round, it will be their first appearance in a home play-off since they hosted the 2007 final.
But Sharks coach Jake White won’t see that as an achievement as he set his sights on winning the competition when it started, and he will have to concede now that the Waratahs, after their unexpectedly one-sided away win over the Chiefs this past weekend, are now the strong tournament favourites.
The Crusaders have also picked themselves up after their unexpected defeat to the Sharks in Christchurch two weeks ago, so there is a tough road ahead for the Sharks if they want to win the competition, and just making sure they advance straight to the semifinal round is now looking a much more difficult proposition than it was.
While it is easy to feel sorry for the Sharks for the players did look out on their feet against the Stormers and the arduous tour clearly caught up with them, the coaches also have to take responsibility as the lack of rotation in selection has long been seen as a possible obstacle.(Have to agree Jake!)
The Springbok front-row that fronts the Sharks’ challenge has started every single game except for the one where Bismarck du Plessis was injured, and Willem Alberts, who looked a pale shadow of his usual self against the Stormers, has also played every game. So too, of course, has Frans Steyn. So perhaps it was inevitable that the Sharks were going to be caught short sometime, and their greater energy was noted before the game as the one aspect that might be in the Stormers’ favour.
It turned out that way, with the Stormers actually making heavy weather of it once they had clearly taken control of the game at about the hour mark of the Kings Park clash. Had replacement flyhalf Demetri Catrakilis not missed touch with two penalties at crucial stages, the Stormers might not have needed to wait until the last minute to win.
In the Sharks’ favour going forward is the reminder that was sent out by the Lions that you can’t take anything for granted in this competition. The lower ranked teams can beat the top ranked ones on a given day. So the Waratahs and Crusaders can trip up too in the remaining weeks. The point though is that the Sharks no longer have their destiny in their own hands, and they will go to Newlands for the last match of the league phase needing to win it - and even that might not be enough.
The big winners this weekend were undeniably the Crusaders, who saw the results go their way in every match played that influenced their own ambitions. Their challengers in the New Zealand conference were all undone in a weekend of upsets, and the Durban result would have suited them too.
It seems the Mighty Stormers could be the team that sinks the B ulle and Sharks. Its very unfortunate of course but as we have had to bear some very snide and misinformed remarks from rooitwit and windpomp its difficult to be too sad.
