A total of 16 tries across the last two matches with a team infused with youth was a positive way for the Hollywoodbets Sharks to end an abject Vodacom Super Rugby Championship season but now comes the next step - to make it count for something.
Given that Rory Duncan is set to come in as the Sharks’ chief of staff in the off-season and a new attack coach, Scott Mathie, will also be joining them before next season kicks off, and that senior player Siya Kolisi is returning to the DHL Stormers, the 54-19 win in Durban did in some ways mark the end of an era.
With the good news filtering through that there have also been much-needed changes made to the recruitment system and that the Sharks are busy interviewing prospective candidates to take over the role, it does appear that there is positive change on the way at a club that has under-performed over the seasons since South African teams joined the URC.
Last year’s third-place finish on the log was the highest the Sharks have ever gone in the URC, their next best was fifth in the inaugural season when Sean Everitt was the coach, and for the other three, they’ve been outside of the placings that would have given them Investec Champions Cup qualification. No, not nearly good enough considering the names on their books.
However, the names on the Sharks’ books, the number of so-called Galactico players and Springbok first choices have been part of the problem. The owners of local clubs, often with some justification, complain about how little they see of their Boks, but that is a scenario they should have been aware of before they signed on. And there certainly needed to be more science behind the recruiting in Durban, for just throwing money at big names is not the route to success.
VAN ZYL AN ASTUTE BUY - UNLESS HE’S CALLED TO THE BOKS
It requires a lot more than that, as the Sharks have discovered, although there is also some grey area. For instance, the latest announced Sharks signing is that of former Vodacom Bulls and current Saracens scrumhalf Ivan van Zyl.
If you were to ask Fourie du Preez, the finest player ever to wear the Bok No 9, he’d tell you that is an astute buy. Du Preez told me in a magazine interview I did with him last year auditing the South African depth at scrumhalf that he couldn’t understand why Van Zyl, now 30, has not had more of a look-in at Bok level since he made his debut back in 2018.
Van Zyl is indeed a fine all-round player and those Sharks fans with long memories might remember him completely bossing their team in a game in Durban when John Mitchell was the Bulls coach eight or nine years ago. And perhaps returning to play in SA is Van Zyl’s way of saying that he wants to be more visible so he can get the place at the Boks someone like Du Preez believes his talent merits.
That though is where the grey area comes in - the Sharks need players who are not going to be away with the Boks for a significant amount of time, as at the moment they have too many of those. They are losing Grant Williams to Japan and Van Zyl is a like-for-like replacement in that sense, but they hardly ever saw Williams in the pre-season because of his Bok involvements and that will be the case with Van Zyl if he does get called to higher honours.
JP’S SELECTIONS MAY MAKE PRE-SEASON MORE MEANINGFUL
However, what the success the Sharks’ new head coach JP Pietersen enjoyed in blooding talented youngsters in the closing months of the season (it wasn’t just the last two games) should have done is make it possible for him to have something his predecessor John Plumtree never had last year - meaning a proper pre-season where meaningful work can be done.
Plumtree had just eight fit players in camp in the month before the start of the last URC season and it was no surprise therefore to see the Sharks bomb like they did. By the time the Boks returned to duty it was a good few games into the season and the damage had been done while, having not seen them in the pre-season, many of their teammates would have been relative strangers to them.
Given the Sharks will have a lot of players involved in the Greatest Rivalry Series and the other games the Boks will play this year, that is likely to be the case again, but Pietersen has given himself a chance with some of his recent selections to work with a nucleus of players who are not quite Boks yet but who have shown they have the ability to do well at URC level.
Teenagers Zekhethelu Siyaya and Vusi Muyo may go on to become Boks in time but that is not going to happen now, and ditto other young players who have been blooded such as Matt Ramao, Jaco Williams, Lilehlihe Bester and, while he has been around for a while, you have to add Jurenzo Julius to that list.
TEMPTATION TO SEND YOUNGSTERS TO CURRIE CUP SHOULD BE RESISTED
The term dead wood appeared to apply to a lot of the players Plumtree ended up working with, but you wouldn’t say the same about the energetic performances turned in over the last two matches. The caveat does have to be added that they were home games against Italian teams that appeared to have checked out of their respective seasons.
Certainly if this was being written after the two-match tour that saw losses to the Ospreys and Edinburgh that effectively ended the Sharks’ top-eight hopes, this would be a very different story in that it wouldn’t feature the angle of hope that it does.
To make the infusion of youth meaningful when the next URC season starts with the Boks away on international duty, Pietersen needs to work with them in a proper pre-season - and that means that the temptation to expose the youngsters in the Currie Cup needs to be resisted at all costs.
Yes, the Currie Cup is a good introduction-level competition for newcomers, but if you intend to use them in the URC then they should be getting an off-season and a proper buildup to the main competition rather than playing in the Currie Cup. The extra playing opportunity it offers was what the national under-23 competition was introduced for - and at least it happens in season and not out of season when players should first be taking time off and then starting their all-important preparation for the following season.