You shouldn’t really have a player that qualifies as a hero when you lose 46-19 at home in a crucial derby game, but then if Gerbrandt Grobler wasn’t playing for the Cell C Sharks, the DHL Stormers’ winning margin would have been much wider.
Grobler was the best Sharks forward by some distance on the day, and consistently looks the best of the Sharks second-row forwards on the days that Eben Etzebeth is not available to play for them and subsequent to Ruben van Heerden switching sides following a brief stint at Exeter Chiefs.
While the rest of the Sharks forwards appeared to raise the white flag in the face of the onslaught from the Cape forward unit, Grobler stood firm, and fittingly it was him who scored two of the three tries that the Sharks scored to put them in what ultimately proved a vain hunt for a try-scoring bonus point.
It was largely because of the endeavour of Grobler, who unsurprisingly is a product of the lock factory in Pretoria, and more specifically Affies, that a few creaks in the lineout were the only blemishes on an otherwise completely dominant performance from the Stormers pack.