I is always funny when we get repetitive stories on site - normally totally distant from what happened on the field of play. One of the constant repeats is how poor a player Pieter-Steph du Toit is and that he should not be in the Springbok team. There are many others - normally based on invented nonsense and not worth the paper it is written on.
However, another one is how wonderful the center pairing of the Sharks - Esterhuizen and Am - is. After the Sharks backline failed badly against the Hurricanes - the dummy attention was on the Du Preez twins - not a single word of the backline failure of the center pairing.
What I did notice was the way Esterhuizen lined up in defense, Whenever there was breakdown play Esterhuizen nearly all the time was lined up against opposition forwards and left the forwards to defend against the Hurricane backline players. Am in defense just vanish from sight. Are they still the real deal after their disaster last week
So lets just take a look at what the defensive stats of the Stormers forwards against the Hurricanes was in their match earlier this season compared to the defensive stats of the Shark centers:-
Stormers
De Allende - Possession losses - 2
Tackles - 7
Missed tackles - 1
Nel - Possession losses - 0
Tackles - 8
Missed tackles - 1
By the way the despicable Du Toit made 30 tackles and missed 3 in that g ame.
Sharks
Esterhuizen - Possession losses - 1
Tackles - 5
Missed tackles - 2
Am - Possession losses - 2
Tackles - 6
Missed tackles - 1
The above made for vey interesting reading - why no comment on this issue? LMAO
