There will be many Cell C Sharks fans pleased at the news that Sikhumbuzo Notshe will be making his return to the playing field in Wednesday’s Carling Currie Cup clash with DHL Western Province at Hollywoodbets Kings Park.
The Sharks Currie Cup team get a chance in the game to complete the Mountain Goat diet the senior team playing in the Vodacom United Rugby Championship didn’t quite get to fully digest when they met the Stormers last weekend at the start of a week that sees three clashes between the Durban and Cape Town teams in the space of seven days.
Notshe of course played all his provincial and franchise rugby for the Cape team before moving to Durban at the end of 2019 and will probably see it as fitting that he gets to restart after nine frustrating months sidelined with injury against a team wearing the jersey he knows so well.
However, perhaps even more noteworthy given the questions being asked about his career and future with the Durban union, the match will also be the first appearance on the playing field of 2022 for Curwin Bosch.
The former South African Schools and age-group star was a significant absentee from the first Sharks team selected two weeks ago and the URC match day squads and while URC coach Sean Everitt mentioned a slight niggle, it did nothing to douse the speculation that Bosch might be in the exit lounge when it comes to his Sharks career.
Bosch was displaced as the starting flyhalf in the senior team by first Lionel Cronje and then Boeta Chamberlain during the course of last year, and it is understood that his agents have been negotiating with a few overseas clubs but there has been a struggle to get anything finalised.
What is important to note though is that the Sharks do appear to have decided that Bosch isn’t occupying the prime place in their future that was once thought to be the case.
There is nothing wrong with Bosch’s main skill, which is place-kicking followed closely by his out of hand kicking, but his reluctance to hit the gainline and be physical proved a weakness when it came to the Sharks’ attacking game.
The criticism that rained down on both Bosch and the Sharks after the 2020 Currie Cup final, where the player’s tendency to drop into the pocket was particularly highlighted, has not been forgotten.
Certainly the criticism that was directed at the previous Sharks coach Robert du Preez, who ignored Bosch for a long time when it came to flyhalf selection, seems from a historical perspective to have been perhaps less justified than it felt at the time.
Bosch is a talented player but he is a long way from the finished article and his potential to ever shore up his main weakness, being his defensive work, is questionable.
Playing in the Currie Cup though is an opportunity for Bosch to prove his critics wrong and perhaps send out the message that he could still be an option in the URC team, particularly given the way that the Sharks struggled with their place-kicking against the Stormers last weekend.
Both Chamberlain and Argentine import Tito Bonilla, who is another player ahead of Bosch in the Sharks pecking order, missed crucial kicks at posts that would have won the game against the Stormers had they been successful.
For his part, Sharks URC coach Everitt doesn’t appear too concerned about Chamberlain’s kicking form and ascribed it to being an off-night.
“Boeta just had an off day with the boot, for him it was just a bad day at the office,” said Everitt after the Stormers game.
“We know he can kick. There were two off the upright today, meaning kicks that were close to going over, one from Boeta and one from Tito. They are working hard on their kicking, every day they work on it. We know Boeta can kick and just a few months ago he was the hero when he kicked several drop-goals against the Ospreys to win us the game.”
Indeed, while Chamberlain is being blamed in some quarters for the Sharks not winning the game against the Stormers, it is a fact that they would have lost had it not been for a superb drop-goal slotted by the flyhalf from more than 40 metres that was reminiscent of De Wet Ras in the season he spent with Natal way back in 1979 and some of the kicks Bosch has slotted.
There is another recent Sharks flyhalf who was considered promising playing for the Sharks against WP in the form of Inny Radebe, who is back in Durban after playing for Eastern Province and will slot in at fullback for Anthony Volmink.
Bosch replaces Jordan Chiat, who is out for six weeks after injuring his AC joint in the opening domestic match against Griquas.
Cell C Sharks: Inny Radebe, Yaw Penxe, Werner Kok, Marius Louw (captain), Marnus Potgieter, Curwin Bosch, Cameron Wright, Sikhumbuzo Notshe, Celimphilo Gumede, James Venter, Reniel Hugo, Emile van Heerden, Lourense Adriaanse, Fez Mbatha, Khwezi Mona.
Replacements: Dan Jooste, Dian Bleuler, Hanru Jacobs, Le Roux Roets, Thembelani Bholi, OJ Noa, Sanele Nohamba, Murray Koster.