Hollywoodbets Sharks coach John Plumtree has had some time to think in the break between the end of his team’s overseas tour and the final furlong of the Vodacom United Rugby Championship season and it would be surprising if there hasn’t been some deliberation over the flyhalf position.
The Sharks play the Ospreys at Hollywoodbets Kings Park on Friday night in the first of two games against Welsh teams that will end their league campaign and which should secure them the much coveted top four finish that will ensure a home quarterfinal in early June.
For the Sharks it is being approached as the start of a new season, with word from around the Sharks camp being that their overseas tour, where they edged home against both Edinburgh and Ulster, was treated as part of a pre-season that started in the three week break from URC before that when there were two rounds of EPCR knock-out games.
PLUMTREE HAS NEVER HAD A PRE-SEASON WITH HIS BOKS
Some of his critics may have overlooked this but it is a fact that in the two seasons that Plumtree has been back with the Sharks, he has yet to have a proper window for a pre-season that features his Springboks.
Last season, his first since he returned to take the reins of a team he had last coached in 2013, the Boks were playing in the Rugby World Cup in France when he was preparing the squad for action and getting through his ideas.
After that the World Cup winners had a three week break to celebrate their victory in the global event. This season it was a similar story. While Plumtree was working with the rank and file players in a pre-season that culminated with the winning of the Carling Currie Cup, the Boks who make up a considerable portion of his first choice team were winning the Castle Lager Rugby Championship for their country.
Their first introduction to the team in the 2024/2025 season was in the two home wins over the reigning champions Glasgow Warriors and former champions Munster that preceded the Bok end of year tour.
The continuity was broken by the November tour before the Sharks Boks returned, but not all of them, to help their team to a narrow win over the competition’s inaugural champions, the DHL Stormers.
After that came a series of injuries that led to a mini-crisis, but even if that hadn’t been the case the central point would have remained true - there was no time for Plumtree to do a proper pre-season with his top players.
He had to send them straight into action as December was a critical phase of the pool phase of the Investec Champions Cup season and there were also crucial URC derbies to be played.
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Plumtree’s plan was always to give the Boks February off as per the national resting protocols and that period coincided with his own return to New Zealand to see his family.
The top players returned to action in dribs and drabs during March but with the Sharks out of the Champions Cup and never intending to take the Challenge Cup seriously as they had a “been there and done that” attitude to the secondary EPCR competition, there was a window for a mini pre-season featuring the returning Boks in the first half of April.
STAYED HOME TO WORK WITH TOP PLAYERS
He sent an under-strength team to Lyon to play in the Challenge Cup round of 16 game and kept the Boks back in Durban to work with them in preparation for the business end of the URC season and what for them can be seen as a fresh beginning.
Plumtree was criticised in some quarters for not going with the Challenge Cup team, instead putting defence coach Joey Mongalo in charge, but it was actually clever planning - he needed to be back home working with his first choice team or the whole objective of the mini pre-season would have been defeated.
The two games overseas against Edinburgh and Ulster needed to be won if the Sharks were going to be sure of a top four finish, but at the same time they were effectively a warmup for what is coming next - the two home games against the Ospreys and Scarlets and then the quarterfinal, which will most likely be against the Stormers.
Plumtree said on the eve of the Ulster game that his team weren’t quite where they needed to be yet, but that they were working towards peaking when the real sharp end of the season arrives. He used a horse-racing analogy, inserting the team sponsors into it by saying that he had “a Hollywoodbets horse” that was using lesser races to prepare for the Kentucky Derby.
He vowed then that while that horse wasn’t quite fully fit yet, it would be ready when the big day arrived. The Sharks can probably misfire a bit and still win the two games against the Welsh teams, with the date with the Stormers four weeks hence is what they are working towards, but Plumtree knows his team can’t waste any more time in their quest to pick up momentum.
HENDRIKSE HASN’T BEEN AT HIS BEST
Their come-from-behind win over Ulster was a good one as it was at a venue where no South African franchise team has won before, but Plumtree didn’t mince words afterwards and was clearly unhappy. There were several aspects of his team’s play he wasn’t satisfied with, and that surely cues the deliberation over flyhalf.
While no-one will deny Jordan Hendrikse’s abilities as a flyhalf, and he played two good games for the Boks last year, he hasn’t excelled in his game driving role recently and he’s been given enough opportunity now to get into the groove.
The highly capable Siya Masuku has either not been selected or has had a bench role for most of the season, but he has made a difference to the Sharks’ game management when he has come on. Both of the overseas games were won late.
Masuku showed both his game-driving ability and his temperament when he was the star of the Sharks’ successful drive to the Challenge Cup title last year and it would be remiss of Plumtree not to be giving serious consideration to reinstalling him in the No 10 jersey.
The Sharks’ defence was excellent in Edinburgh and Belfast and was effectively what got them over the line, but they will need their star studded backline to start clicking in the two games against Welsh teams if they are to properly announce themselves as URC title challengers.
The Sharks team for Friday night’s game, which kicks off at 7pm, will be announced at lunch time on Thursday and don’t be surprised if Masuku is in the starting team. The time has arrived for some hard choices to be made.