Don’t bet against the out of favour Springbok scrumhalf Jaden Hendrikse reinventing himself as a flyhalf to help the Hollywoodbets Sharks out of a hole at the start of the new Vodacom United Rugby Championship season.
The Sharks will name their first touring squad for the new campaign shortly as they play their first URC game away against recent champions Glasgow Warriors at the Scotstoun on Friday week (26 September).
With so many of the top Sharks players committed to the Castle Lager Rugby Championship with the Boks, John Plumtree’s team will be markedly understrength for the start of their campaign.
The problems being experienced at lock due to the injuries to Corne Rahl and then Emile van Heerden, plus the decision not to contract Gerbrandt Grobler again, have been documented already, with Plumtree fortunate to have been able to sign the former Vodacom Bulls and DHL Stormers Bok lock Marvin Orie for the season.
With the experienced Jason Jenkins, who has also been capped for the Boks, there to form an all international second row pairing with Orie, the Sharks will at least start off okay at lock.
It is if they have another injury before Eben Etzebeth returns from Bok duty that they may have a problem to deal with, although Vincent Tshituka, who will captain the Sharks while Bok captain Siya Kolisi is away, has also played quite a bit of rugby for the Sharks in the second row.
With 22-year-old Nick Hatton growing as both a loose-forward and leader, the Sharks do at least have options in the back row should Tshituka be forced in an emergency to play second row.
PIVOT SITUATION COULD CAUSE COACH SLEEPLESS NIGHTS
It is the flyhalf situation now though that might be causing Plumtree sleepless nights, with it understood that Siya Masuku, who had shown good early season form in the warmup games, sustained an injury against the Stormers in George last Friday night that might keep him out for several weeks.
Jaden’s brother, Jordan Hendrikse, is still out with what Plumtree has described as back problem that has been ongoing and which limited his effectiveness towards the end of last season.
“Jordan will unfortunately be out until after tour. He has a back injury from neuro pain that affects his legs. You might have noted that towards the end of last season and in the semifinal loss to the Bulls he wasn’t quite right, not the same player he had been earlier in our campaign,” said Plumtree.
“It will be at least three to four weeks before he is confident about coming back and playing again.”
Plumtree would have been pleased to see the progress made towards the end of the Carling Currie Cup season by Jean Smith, the son of former Bok centre and current Glasgow Warriors coach Franco.
Smith was one of the stars of the excellent Sharks XV win over the Boland Kavaliers in Pietermaritzburg and it could well be that he will be in the Sharks’ match day squad when they open their campaign against his father’s team.
However, given who they are playing against and where, it would make more sense to find a more experienced option and thus ease some of the pressure on the youngster by playing him off the bench in the first game.
Looking at the rest of the Sharks squad, Plumtree’s best option might well be to play the other Hendrikse at flyhalf, where he has deputised occasionally during games and sometimes with good effect.
Jaden, although he has played all his Bok rugby as a scrumhalf, has the skill-set to be a good No10, particularly with his kicking game and ability to control a game, and could be a decent stop-gap until his brother is back in the mix or Masuku returns from his unspecified injury.
BRAUDE BOOSTS HALFBACK STOCKS
Talking of halfbacks, Plumtree is quite excited about the potential of Ross Braude, the Bloemfontein educated Airlink Pumas scrumhalf who has played for Canada.
Braude bolsters the No9 ranks that apart from Jaden Hendrikse and Grant Williams, when he is back from the Boks, also include the promising Ceano Eversohn and Bradley Davids.
Braude is one of a couple of players brought in from the Currie Cup unions on loan, with Cam Dawson, Pumas hooker Eduan Swart and the Griquas captain Cebo Dlamini, a promising tighthead prop, being others.
The Sharks coach is on the look out for a player who can cover wing and fullback and knows he may have to juggle his resources in the last line of defence depending on how long Bok No15 Aphelele Fassi’s injury sustained against the All Blacks at the weekend keeps him out for.
Yaw Penxe can play there and has shown some pre-season form and there is also young Hakeem Kunene, who was thrown in at the deep end when Fassi was unavailable for the away Investec Champions Cup game against eventual tournament winners Bordeaux Begles in January.
HAPPY WITH GEORGE WARMUP AGAINST STORMERS
Plumtree was happy with his team’s “hit out” against the Stormers in George last week, particularly the fight shown by his players as once again they came back and won a game they looked well out of at one stage.
The growth of the team culture was one of the big Sharks growth areas last season and that was continued with the youngsters who played for the Sharks XV in the Currie Cup and also through the pre-season.
“The George match was a typical pre-season game and I think both me and Dobbo (Stormers coach John Dobson) will have been happy with patches of it,” said Plumtree.
“We were aggressive with our skill set and were good with the ball. The Stormers scored some good tries in the first half and I think their lead at halftime was 17-5, but after halftime our defence stood up and we shout their attack down.
“They dominated territory because of our poor discipline of ours and it was something I aimed to talk to the players about when we regather (on Wednesday). The Stormers had seven lineouts in our 22, which isn’t good from our viewpoint. But what was good was that we stopped them from scoring. We scored some breakout tries, one from a kick and tap back, and then towards the end we had some territory and won quite comfortably.
“The Stormers used their whole team, meaning their reserves were all on for the second half, whereas although I made full use of the 28 players we had for the game, I kept the bench for a bit later,” he added.
TOUGH TOUR
The Sharks could not have asked for a tougher opening to their URC campaign as they start with three tough away matches.
Apart from starting out against the very capable Warriors in Glasgow, the Sharks also play tournament champions Leinster on their tour.
That is two matches away against the two most recent winners of the URC.
The middle game of their three match tour is against the Welsh team, the Dragons, who have struggled in the URC over the past few seasons, but who might have a lot of fight in them at home early in the new season.
And while the Stormers and Bulls will get to play what should be an under-strength Leinster at home in the coming weeks, because the Ireland international players and British and Irish Lions won’t be back in the Leinster mix yet, their game in Dublin is in the third round which is when the champions will be expecting to reintroduce their top players.
The Sharks’ Boks could conceivably be available by then, 11 October, as it will be a week after the South Africans end the Rugby Championship against Argentina.
Fortunately that match is scheduled this year for London, so it is conceivable the Boks could stay on for the Leinster game, which would make it a plum fixture as it will be a forerunner for the SA v Ireland fixture at the AVIVA Stadium a month later.
However, with just a week to absorb the Boks back into the Sharks team it might be that the Sharks will wait until their first home game against Ulster on 18 October to welcome back their international players.
HOLLYWOODBETS SHARKS TOUR FIXTURES
Glasgow Warriors (Glasgow, Friday 26 September, 21.05)
Dragons (Newport, Friday 3 October, 21.05)
Leinster (Dublin, Saturday 11 October, 17.30)
Home games before international break in November
Ulster (Hollywoodbets Kings Park, Saturday 18 October, 16.00)
Scarlets (Hollywoodbets Kings Park, Saturday 25 October, 16.00)