Aphelele Fassi’s place in the Springbok squad for the November tour was confirmed not long before he went in front of a Hollywoodbets Sharks press conference on Tuesday and he claimed to be unaware of his selection, but he was pretty clear about where his priority is right now.
Fassi is one of three accomplished fullbacks in Rassie Erasmus’ 35-man squad, with Damian Willemse returning from injury for what will be his first appearances in the green and gold this year, while veteran Willie le Roux has been in good form for the Vodacom Bulls in the Vodacom United Rugby Championship and is closing in on 100 caps for his country.
So there is what he refers to as some healthy competition between those players for a starting place in the games against Scotland, England and Wales. But he made it plain that right now his focus is not on what he will start preparing for next week, but the immediate priority of helping the Sharks beat Munster in their fifth URC game of the season at Hollywoodbets Kings Park on Saturday.
“I am a very one-driven person, meaning I focus completely on what is happening this week and what we are building towards at the weekend,” said Fassi, who walked away with the man of the match award in his first appearance in a Sharks jersey this season in the 28-24 win over champions Glasgow Warriors last weekend.
“I don’t like thinking too much about what is going on around me. I am here at the Sharks for another week (before switching my focus back onto the Springboks), and all of us want to put the Sharks into the best possible position we can be in when we return to Sharks duty after the tour at the end of November.
“We will come back as a whole squad then and will want the Sharks to be in a good position, which we can be if we beat Munster on Saturday. Once I am gone I will be switching focus to the November test matches, but for now it’s all about the Sharks and I am not thinking ahead.”
INEVITABLE RUST
There was some inevitable rust when the Boks returned to the Sharks, something that was understandable.
“We were off from rugby for two weeks and then when we returned we only had two or three days together before playing so that was to be expected,” he said.
However, Fassi excelled in the game, and the Sharks ended up beating the competition champions. The ominous warning for future opponents is that he believes the Sharks can only get better from here, and he expects a much-improved performance against Munster, who were the champions that were dethroned by the Glasgow success last season.
“We knew after the Glasgow game that there were opportunities we missed on the attacking side. And there were also some slipped tackles and defensive mistakes that allowed Glasgow to score two tries in the last five minutes,” said the fullback.
“We have been reviewing that at the start of the week building up to the Munster game and we are working on fixing those errors. Munster are also a quality side, they have a lot of internationals and play a quick controlled game. We have done our reviews and we have come up with plans around how to stop them and how to implement our own game so that we can create opportunities for ourselves.”
The accepted line after the Sharks bounced back against Glasgow after the unexpectedly comprehensive defeat at the hands of Benetton in Treviso the week before was that it was all about the return of the Boks, but Fassi disagrees.
“It was not us who brought up the standard of the other guys, it was the coaching staff. We had good conversations last week on how we wanted to play. We viewed the Benetton game and agreed that we didn’t take our opportunities and didn’t get to take the ball over the gainline enough.
“We resolved to keep the ball through the phases and in that way create opportunities, and to be more ruthless on defence.”