The return of their red card players will take place during the upcoming tour and it is likely that Lambie will be back in two weeks time as well.
Lambie is seriously missed by the Sharks and Pieter-Steph du Toit equally so. The latter has another 6 weeks to go before he can be considered to play again and I doubt whether that would happen before the RC.
Now lets look at the situation pertaining to Francois Steyn, Bismarck du Plessis and Jean Deysel.
Francois Steyn
Steyn played at 12 for the Springboks in 2012 and his record was not awe-inspiring. In the six tests he played in his performances varied from average to poor. He was overweight and slowed down and the long distance epnalty kicks for which he was famous vanished from sight. Part of the problem then could have been attributed to the dismal performance of Morne Steyn at flyhalf. However, after his 6th test appearance he got injured off the field - probably th result of a serious overweight problem - that ruled him out of rugby for the rest of the year.
Steyn played at center for the Sharks in Super 15 in 2013 and the early part of 2014. His record in the 2013 tournament was abysmal. He was grossly overweight and slow, while his poor performances were tainted by poor defence and decision-making. Plumtree publicly said he is no center and dropped him from the starting line -up of the Sharks and afterwards used him at fullback coming from the bench. Plumtree eventually were forced as a result of the injury to Jordaan to bring him back to play two games at center - he was seriously injured in the second game and played no further rugby n 2013.
His performances of 2014 was equally questionable - in some cases dismally poor. He had the second worst defensive stats of any no 12 in SA franchises bar Ryno Benjamin and he made in total 1 line break at center and one at flyhalf in all matches he played at center beating a total of 8 defenders. That was by far the worst attacking record of any other center or for that matter flyhalf.
Steyn developed a knee problem that could not be set right medically since it was the directly related to his over-weight problem, which impacted on hso pace and his defensive abilities.
His temperament and ego caused major hassles in Meyer's squad in June last year and a day before the team announcement for the first test against Wales he left the squad on the pretext that SARU owed him money.
When he came back from Japan he was physically in better shape than he was since 2012. He lost a lot of weight - his weight came down by 12 kilos - and the general opinion was that he would make a positive impact. However, his performances - both at center where he played for three games - and at flyhalf in his other game this year was even worse than his poor record last year. His serial offences this year - leading to a yellow card in his first match and a red in his third match - shows a serious deficiency and there can be no excuses for his ill-tempered displays on the field of play.
Since his replacement - Andre Esterhuizen - had solid to good games and did better in both defense and attacking play than Steyn did for the past two Super 15 seasons - I am of the opinion that Steyn was not missed in the period he was suspended. In my opinion Esterhuizen should be retained as the Sharks number 12 and at best Steyn should be on the bench.
Bismarck du Plessis
If there was one player who showed a serious decline in both his performances and his temperament in 2014 it as Bismarck du Plessis. He looks like Mallett said recently in a bad temper whenever on the field and reacted badly whenever a player dares to touch him.
Problem with Bismarck is - where he initially was always the first choice starting hooker his performances in 2014 deteriorated so badly that Meyer more frequently started with Adriaan Strauss last year. The impression gained that his age he will soon be 31 years of age - is having a detrimental affect on his performances.
His initial replacement was Kyle Cooper. That proved to be a disaster - Cooper was unlike in the past when he did replace Bismarck - was abysmally poor and in the last two matches he was replaced by Franco Marais a youngster who did remarkably well when he started at hooker
I think Bismarck was missed by the Sharks and his return would help the team. However, what is clear as daylight is that he must clean up his performances and deliver the goods better than he did over the this year, as well as last year.
Jean Deysel
Performance-wise Deysel is pure and simply not good enough to play at Super 15 level. He has the worst disciplinary record of any loosie in SA and is a serious liability on the field of play.
Unfortunately his replacement is Alberts - who looked better than he normally does on Saturday. Unfortunately Alberts is slow and his defense at times is poor. A typical example is the br eak around the scrum of Paige - which let to the try scored by Hougaard. Paige had no more than 4 meters space between the blindside of the scrum and and the touchline - and Alberts did zero to stop him.
The issue here has to do with the actual performances of Alberts as well - he delivers very little as a flank forward. So in fact the Afrikaans saying applies to Deysel and Alberts : Hulle is soos finkel and koljander - die een is so sleg soos die ander.
