There wasn’t anything of any consequence to play for but the Hollywoodbets Sharks did manage to breathe some energy into their flagging season with a comprehensive 46-7 victory over Benetton in their penultimate Vodacom URC league game of the season in Durban on Saturday.
Benetton started with purpose but then appeared to flag once they fell behind, as you might expect for a team that is visiting and is 13th on the log with no prospect of climbing into the playoff bracket. There was also a 20-minute red card to Jacob Umaga for a horrible no arms tackle on Springbok legend Makazole Mapimpi that saw the Sharks wing stretchered off plus a yellow card to hooker Bautista Bernasconi that saw the Italian team down on numbers for a significant part of the game.
NEW FLYHALF PIVOTAL IN BETTER ATTACKING GAME
Nonetheless, the Sharks did show better attacking shape than they have in a while. Much of that may have had to do with the injection of 18-year-old Zekuthelu Siyaya into the flyhalf position and given how the Sharks have struggled with that aspect of their game it was a positive for the beleaguered Durban team. The Westville Boys High old boy turned in an impressive all-round performance beyond his years to suggest he may have a bright future in whatever position he specialises in.
He made his debut at fullback against the Ospreys and also played well there against Edinburgh, but in both those games the Sharks lost to spoil the experience for him. They were comfortable winners in this game at Hollywoodbets Kings Park and with his slippery running style as well as his good distribution skills Siyaya played his part in a triumph that won’t silence the justified criticism but did just give a little nudge to the watching crowd that there may be better times ahead than they have become used to this season.
HATTRICK FOR BOOGEYMAN
He’s played for the Sharks for a lot longer than Siyaya has but centre Jurenzo “Boogeyman” Julius is also still a young player and he ended up ensuring his place in the headlines for this game by producing a try scoring hattrick. Together with last year’s Junior Springbok wing/fullback Jaco Williams, Julius was instrumental in the first two tries that go the Sharks express moving forward.
Williams, playing fullback in this game, joined the line to create the extra man and put in Edwill van der Merwe with a delightful little back-flip “chicken wing” pass in the 12th minute.
There was a suggestion that it might have been forward but the referee did not agree and while Siyaya did miss the attempted conversion, and also his subsequent attempts, the Sharks were up and running, and even more so once Julius had swivelled through a gap to score an individualistic try that precipitated by way of celebration an even more individualistic, trade-mark dance.
Again the conversion was missed but that made it 10-0 after 21 minutes and with the Sharks scrum dominant and a bit of daylight between the teams on the scoreboard, Benetton appeared to lose some of their intent of purpose. Five minutes later a player on the other end of the experience scale, Bok skipper Siya Kolisi, drove over off an attacking lineout set up by a penalty awarded when hooker Bautista Bernasconi was yellow carded to make it 15-0, with scrumhalf Bradley Davids, another young Sharks player, being handed the place-kicking duties but making it three out of three conversion misses.
The bonus point try, not that log points are any longer relevant to the Sharks, came on the stroke of halftime, just after the unfortunate Mapimpi was taken off and Umaga was carded. Van der Merwe wriggled his way through to complete his brace of tries by wriggling through to dot down on the right corner. Siyaya took over the kicking duties again but pushed the ball inside the right coast so it was 20-0, with the scoring made up just of tries,
FORWARDS LAID THE PLATFORM
Focusing just on the young backline players who strutted their stuff would not complete the story of why the Sharks dominated the first 40 minutes and won so comfortably. Bok loosehead Ox Nche was his usual destructive self on the left hand side of the scrum, Emile van Heerden was excellent again in the lineouts, Jason Jenkins and Emmanuel Tshituka carried well and the forwards laid the platform.
In the second half it was the turn of skipper Andre Esterhuizen to be the first to cross the chalk but it was his young partner in the midfield who stole the show with his elusive running style as he completed a highly popular hat-trick of tries that introduced some debate over whether it should be he or young Siyaya who would clinch the official man of the match award.
In the end it went to Julius and there was the welcome sight before the final whistle of Mapimpi back on his feet and taking his seat on the sidelines to complete a positive afternoon for the home team and their supporters that was sealed by an excellent late try from another young player in the form of replacement wing Lithelihle Bester.
Just before that the Italian team scored their solitary try that ensured that they didn’t leave Durban having been whitewashed, which for most of the game appeared likely as they fired few shots against their opponents.
SCORES
Hollywoodbets Sharks 46 - Tries: Edwill van der Merwe 2, Jurenzo Julius 2, Siya Kolisi, Andre Esterhuizen and Lithelihle Bester;
Conversion: Bradley Davids and Jean Smith 2.
Benetton 7 - Try: Cristiano Tizzano
Conversion: Alessandro Garbissi.