There haven’t been any media engagements yet this week with Hollywoodbets Sharks players or coaches but you can bet your house that one of the lines that will come out of the Durban team will be that they are not going to be taking Zebre lightly when the Italian team visits on Saturday.
And they would be right to do so. The mid-afternoon 13th round Vodacom United Rugby Championship game at Hollywoodbets Kings Park sees the fourth placed team clashing with the second last placed team on the log table, so you’d think it was a gimme for the hosts.
However John Plumtree and his charges, and most particularly his charges, have learned the hard way that no-one should be underestimated in the highly competitive URC.
Although there was a comfortable EPCR Challenge Cup win in Durban since then, memories of their shock defeat to the then URC cellar dwellers in Parma last November will also still be fresh in the mind banks.
Next Up:
— The Sharks (@SharksRugby) March 17, 2025
🏆 United Rugby Championship
🆚 Zebre Parma
🏟️ Hollywoodbets Kings Park
⏱️ 14h45 (CAT)
🎟️ https://t.co/x3PZN3fuZI@vodacom #URC #SHAvZEB pic.twitter.com/PgF9OugKWP
Kings Park has evolved into a bit of a fortress for the Sharks this season, with only mighty Toulouse having left the venue as winners. The three past URC champions - the DHL Stormers, Glasgow Warriors and Munster - have all fallen to the Sharks in Durban, as have the twice beaten finalists, the Vodacom Bulls.
But the URC has become highly competitive, with this year’s battle for top eight spots tighter than it has ever been. It is exemplified by Zebre’s position - although they are placed 15th, they have 25 points, more than they’ve assimilated in a few seasons combined.
That is just four points behind the top eight, and while the Sharks, on 39 points, appear over the hill and far away from the vantage point of Zebre, the points gap is much smaller than the 11 place gap in position in a 16 team field would suggest it should be.
BONUS POINT WIN A NON-NEGOTIABLE
Yet while Zebre are more competitive than they were, and have pushed some big teams home and away, and have got across the line as winners in five of their 12 games, a bonus point win has to be a non-negotiable for the Sharks as they are heading into a month and a bit of rugby that will decide their season for them.
Back to regular programming 🤝@Vodacom #URC #SHAvZEB pic.twitter.com/29sSNv6O3R
— The Sharks (@SharksRugby) March 17, 2025
One of the reasons we should expect the Sharks to be talking up Zebre is because of what comes next.
Leinster haven’t arrived in South Africa with their international players and will be under-strength when they go in against the Bulls in Pretoria at the weekend, but they could well call some in for a game they should be targeting and which will present an opportunity for them to get their groove before they host Harlequins in the Investec Champions Cup round of 16.
With the Guinness Six Nations having been centre stage in Europe since the end of January, it is a while since the top Leinster team has played together.
Either way, the Leinster game is a big one for the Sharks, so big that their fans should feel wary that because they have the eye on the bigger ball, they might end up dropping the smaller one. It wouldn’t be completely out of character for the Durban team.
GOOD TIMING IF STARS RETURN NOW
The chances of that happening should be lessened by the likely rejuvenation the Sharks should expect as influential players return from lengthy layoffs. Coach Plumtree was cautiously optimistic the last time he was broached on the subject of Eben Etzebeth, who he said is now over the concussion problems that has kept him off the field since the Champions Cup opener against Exeter Chiefs at the beginning of December.
We should also be expecting to see several other injured Springboks, such as Andre Esterhuizen and Aphelele Fassi, coming back into the Sharks system in the coming weeks.
If they do, it will be timely, as the Sharks face a potential sequence of six games across both the URC and the EPRC Challenge Cup.
They dropped to the latter competition when they failed to win more than one game in the pool phase of the elite Champions Cup, and given that they are certain of finishing in the top eight of the URC, that competition should be less of a big deal to them than it was last season.
Last season they needed to win the Challenge Cup, which is effectively for teams who aren’t good enough for the Champions Cup and and who don’t rank in the top 16 in Europe, because they bombed in the URC and from an early stage it was obvious that they weren’t going to make the top eight cut for Champions Cup qualification.
DILEMMA FOR PLUMTREE
This year their URC form has been a lot better, and they are chasing the Glasgow Warriors and the Bulls for the coveted second place finish that will give them two home playoff games.
So they don’t need Challenge Cup success, which means that Plumtree does face an interesting dilemma given that the deeper his team goes in the Challenge Cup the more travel obstacles there will be to impact on the primary objective of doing well in the URC.
A look at the EPCR schedule combined with their URC fixtures though does suggest there’s good reason to go all out to win the round of 16 game in Lyon. That’s because the Sharks are due back in the northern hemisphere less than two weeks after that Sunday game for a Friday night URC game against Edinburgh.
Edinburgh, coached by former Sharks coach Sean Everitt, are difficult opponents, particularly at home, and then the Sharks go a week later to Ulster, where South African teams do not boast a great record.
Do the Sharks want to return to South Africa in that 12 day gap between the EPRC round of 16 clash and the Edinburgh game? It would make more sense for them to have another game that keeps them over there and they can turn it into a proper four match tour by playing in an EPCR quarterfinal.
Provided of course they don’t end up having to play the Lions in Johannesburg.
Get through the quarterfinal stage the trophy is within sight again and how they approach the later playoff games could depend on a) how they are doing in the URC and b) on the injury situation.
If the Sharks' top dogs are all back they may have enough depth to go under-strength in Lyon and still win. The Bulls came close to winning there under-strength last season, with a missed Jaco van der Walt penalty attempt costing them what would have been a deserved win.
What Sharks face over next six weeks (URC unless stated):
Zebre (Durban, Saturday 22 March, 2:45pm)
Leinster (Durban, Saturday 29 March, 7:15pm)
EPCR Challenge Cup - Lyon (Lyon, Sunday 6 April, 5pm)
EPCR Challenge Cup potential quarterfinal (weekend of 11/12/13 March)
Edinburgh (Edinburgh, Friday 18 April, 8:35pm)
Ulster (Belfast, Saturday 26 April, 8:35pm)