The Hollywoodbets Sharks season could have just four matches left. Yes, that’s true for a lot of teams, but more so for them than most of the other contenders in the Vodacom URC, for it really is touch and go whether the Durbanites will make the top eight and qualify for the knock-outs.
Extending their season by at least one match will be the minimum requirement if the Sharks are to salvage something from what has been an extremely trying season for them that has seen a change in coach and a period of crisis management as they have plunged back to the bottom part of the URC log that they occupied in 2024.
Back then they were able to sacrifice any chance of getting a play-off spot on the altar of the more important requirement of making it into the Investec Champions Cup through the EPCR Challenge Cup, which in 2023/24 they were part of from the start.
Unlike this season, where they were in the Champions Cup and then dropped to the lower competition because they failed to finish in the top four of their group, they were able to set things up and make winning the Challenge Cup more viable.
Maybe it was viable to do so again, as if they had won in Ireland last Friday they would have played the quarterfinal in France against Montpellier and then faced just a short hop across the English Channel for their two remaining overseas URC games, starting with the Ospreys the following week.
The logistical challenge wouldn’t have been as stiff as it would have been had they had to return home before going back to the northern hemisphere.
But it was clear from last week’s selection for their round of 16 game against Connacht in Galway that they didn’t think it was viable. Or that they had decided the URC was just the more likely route.
It is true that they have had an awful run of injuries of late, and that impacted on selection, but when they left their talismanic captain Andre Esterhuizen out of the team, it was a clear indication that they were prioritising the URC as their only potential route to Champions Cup qualification for next year, and the financial benefits and marketing gains that come with it.
NOT WRONG TO PRIORITISE URC
And it wasn’t wrong to do so. The challenge of playing across two different cross section competitions does demand a choice be made. Playing a series of Challenge Cup knock-out games away from home would have presented logistical challenges that would have seriously compromised the closing stages of the URC campaign.
It was suggested before the game by someone involved with the Sharks that the ideal outcome for the Sharks in Galway would be for them to lose but play well so that it didn’t dent their pride or their standing with their supporters. In the first half they delivered but in the second they didn’t.
They got the result they needed because they can focus exclusively on the URC from now on, but judging from the social media reaction, it is debatable whether they delivered the performance needed for them to return from Ireland with pride intact.
That won’t matter if the Sharks manage to do what they need to do in the remaining four matches, which is to win all of them and then hope that at least two of the teams ahead of them falter in their last four games and allow the Sharks into the top eight. Currently the gap between 10th and eighth is seven points, almost the equivalent of two wins.
BULLS UNLIKELY TO DROP TWO GAMES
The eighth placed team is the Vodacom Bulls, who are unlikely to drop two games in their remaining four given that two of them are at home against the Italian teams. Seventh-placed Munster, who are eight ahead of the Sharks, will also be hard to catch, while sixth placed Cardiff have home games to play.
The team the Sharks may fancy catching is the fifth-placed Lions, mainly because the Johannesburg team do have a tough finish to the league phase as they head to Ireland for their last two games against Leinster and Munster. Before that they also play Glasgow Warriors, who currently top the log.
However, the Lions might have been helped by Glasgow edging out the Bulls in their Champions Cup round of 16 clash at the weekend. It means that by the time they get to Johannesburg for their game in two weeks time they will have had to play several tough games consecutively, starting with Leinster the week after the end of the Guinness Six Nations and proceeding through a clash with Benetton, the Bulls and now Toulon in their European quarterfinal.
If Glasgow arrive in Johannesburg feeling fatigued, and maybe a bit hungover from their European exploits if they do what is expected and beat Toulon to reach a rare Champions Cup semifinal, it would not be surprising and they might just be ripe for the picking against a Lions team that thrashed them at Ellis Park two seasons ago.
Should the Lions, who play their other remaining home game against Connacht, beat Glasgow they will be hard for the Sharks to catch as they currently have a 10-point lead on the Durban side.
SHARKS NEED TO GET MAXIMUM FROM REMAINING GAMES
Regardless of what happens to the other teams, however, it will all become moot if the Sharks don’t do what they need to do - which is pick up the maximum of 20 log points available to them.
All the games are winnable, and like the Bulls they finish off against the two Italian teams at home, but Ospreys and Edinburgh overseas are by no means certain wins and even less so certain five pointers with a four try bonus. Particularly if the Sharks remain injury ravaged.
The heat is on the Sharks and if they do drop points, or the other teams maintain their momentum and keep them out of the top eight, they might regret not going for a repeat of 2024 by going for the Challenge Cup as their path to the Champions Cup. It was a tall order, but at least that route would have seen their fate in their hands, which it isn’t now.
It isn’t that they were wrong to make a choice, it is just that they do now need to hit their straps over four weeks like they did over two in their good wins over the Stormers at the end of January. The heat is on for them as a lot is at stake.
Remaining Hollywoodbets Sharks URC fixtures
Ospreys (Swansea, Saturday 18 April)
Edinburgh (Edinburgh, Friday 24 April)
Benetton (Durban, Saturday 9 May)
Zebre (Durban, Saturday 16 May)