Mike Greenaway
The Sharks’ position at the bottom of the United Rugby Championship table continues to raise eyebrows across the rugby world, but the Lions are concerned that the sleeping giant is showing signs of wakening.
The Sharks are stone last after ten matches and this weekend they travel to Johannesburg with nothing more than pride to play for, but Lions assistant coach Barend Pieterse says there is too much quality in the Durban team for them to struggle forever.
Pieterse, the former Cheetahs stalwart lock, says he saw some warning signs from the Sharks in their loss to the Stormers in their last fixture.
“They have turned the corner,” Pieterse said. “They were down by a big margin in that game but came back in the second half to be within a converted try of winning it. There are not a lot of teams that can come back against the Stormers when they have their tails up like they did in that game.”
The Sharks remain without some of their key (resting) Springboks, but they have a host of players coming back from injury, including former Lions flank Vincent Tshituka, who will have game time on Saturday against his younger brother, Emmanuel.
“If you look at who the Sharks can pick… there is a lot of class and we are going to have to be ready for a very tough game,” Pieterse warned. “We can’t think it is just going to happen. We can’t rely on our old friend ‘the 3pm kick-off’ with the hot sun. The weather won’t do it for us. Those factors are no longer an asset.
“The Sharks have not lost any games by big margins, they are not far off and we will never underestimate any Sharks team, whether they are No1 on the log or 20th.”
The Lions have issues of their own after four losses on the trot, Pieterse acknowledged, including a set piece that misfired against the Bulls.
“We had been going well in that area and we went into that last game knowing that the Bulls use the set pieces to put pressure on teams. We had plans to negate it but they did not come off.
“We need our set piece to be in the game because we are not in the position where we have 23 X-factor players. If our set piece doesn’t function it puts us on the back foot, so obviously we have worked hard on fixing it for the Sharks game.”
Amid the bad news of the losses to the Bulls came the Springbok squad announcement for the alignment camp next month and six Lions players were named.
“It is amazing to have our guys going to the camp,” said Pieterse, who played a midweek game for the Springboks in 2007 but never went on to earn a Test cap. “I am happy for all of them and they deserve it. Our job as coaches is to get three or four more guys into the next camp.
“That news was very nice for the squad but the truth is we have never been in a bad space after the recent losses. I can say with all honesty there has not been one negative comment after those losses.”