Since taking over from John Plumtree as interim head coach at the Hollywoodbets Sharks, JP Pietersen has presided over a mixed bag of results.
In his first game in charge a fully loaded team scraped to a 28-23 Investec Champions Cup win over Saracens, a result that would have been a huge boost for the Sharks had it been against a full strength visiting side. But it wasn’t. The English club came to South Africa with most of their big names missing - meaning no Owen Farrell, no Maro Itoje etc etc.
So it was hard to know what to think, and that didn’t change when the Sharks prevailed in the big home derby against the Vodacom Bulls just before Christmas. A win over the Bulls is always something to celebrate, but again the visitors were some way from being full strength and fielded a much stronger side in the north/south derby in Cape Town a fortnight later.
🌊 𝐂𝐎𝐀𝐒𝐓𝐀𝐋 𝐃𝐄𝐑𝐁𝐘 𝐋𝐎𝐀𝐃𝐈𝐍𝐆 🏖️
— SuperSport Rugby (@SSRugby) January 20, 2026
The DHL Stormers host the Hollywoodbets Sharks in the #VURC on Saturday night 🍿
With the action in the SA Shield heating up, both teams will be chasing the points.
📺 19:00 Build-Up | 19:30 Kick-Off | #SSRugby pic.twitter.com/sblntuOSCh
At that stage it was possible to say though that the team was on an upward graph and improving, only for that progress to be halted by a last gasp defeat to the Lions in a home Vodacom URC derby just after New Year.
That first defeat of the Pietersen reign made it two wins and one defeat, and it is 3-2 now following the anticipated loss away with an understrength team against Sale Sharks in Manchester and a big though expected win at home to a second string Clermont-Auvergne team in what was to prove their final Champions Cup match of the season.
They’ve dropped to the Challenge Cup because of their fifth placed finish in their pool and that is on top of being placed 14th on the URC log as they head to the halfway (for SA teams) round of that competition this weekend.
They are five points adrift of eighth placed Benetton, with a top eight finish that will secure a place in next season’s Champions Cup as well as URC playoff qualification being their minimum requirement for the remainder of the season.
So the Sharks are in a hole, but you could argue that they were in that hole before Pietersen took over in his interim capacity. The Lions defeat was definitely a blip, but the other loss was expected if you consider the selection made for the trip to Manchester.
They need a defining moment, something that will underline in indelible ink that they have indeed turned the corner.
Four #VURC wins in a row for the DHL Stomers over the Hollywoodbets Sharks in Cape Town ⛈️
— SuperSport Rugby (@SSRugby) January 20, 2026
Will the streak continue on Saturday night? pic.twitter.com/aGpRIrOcDW
That opportunity arises over the next two Saturday’s when they face the high riding DHL Stormers in back to back URC derbies, a kind of mini two game series, with the first in Cape Town this weekend and then in Durban the following week.
The Stormers have looked a bit vulnerable just recently but they are comfortably top of the URC log with eight wins in eight starts, and their single defeat this season was in a Champions Cup game in London where they rested most of their star players.
A win over the Cape side will mean something to the Sharks and be a statement. If they go back to back and win in Durban too - well should that happen it would be undeniable that the Sharks are on an upward trend because wins over the Stormers have been as rare as hen’s teeth for the Durbanites in the URC era.
The only defeat the Stormers have suffered to the Sharks was the one in Durban in November 2024 when the TMO chalked off what would have been a last move winning try to Manie Libbok. The closest the Sharks have come otherwise was the draw in the first ever URC meeting between the sides in early 2022, when the Stormers came back from a big deficit to level the scores with a penalty try.
However, with the exception of the 2023 Durban game, where the Stormers were spearheaded by a brilliant allround display from Libbok and ran riot, the games have mostly tended to be close, with the last two Cape Town games seeing an aggregate of just five points separating the teams.
As Bongi Mbonambi, the double World Cup winning Sharks Springbok hooker, intimated in a press conference call, the best South African teams have tended to elicit the best performances from the Sharks - something the Bulls might be able to testify to more than the Sharks.
“Winning (against the Stormers) will mean so much for us and Coach JP, who’s done a great job of stepping in and has done a lot of hard work with the players,” said Mbonambi.
“It won’t just happen by itself, it will require a lot of effort, not just weekend but the following weekend also. You are always as good as your last game. It will be a traditional SA derby, very physical, with two quality sides going at each other. The Stormers have done really well in both competitions this season and they have a quality squad with lots of depth.
“We as a team need to connect together so that we can go to Cape Town and do well against what we know is a really good team.”
The Sharks team for the Cape Town clash will be announced on Thursday.