It wasn’t difficult to imagine which specific franchise Hollywoodbets Sharks coach John Plumtree was referring to when he spoke of the DHL Stormers being the envy of many other coaches and teams in the Vodacom United Rugby Championship.
The Stormers have got it right in precisely the areas that Plumtree is looking to as key to his own team’s renaissance, a renaissance which he appears to be realising is probably going to take longer than he hoped when he first arrived back in Durban to take charge of a team he last coached in 2013.
Plumtree spoke about the determination and constant intensity of the Stormers team, their team culture and refusal to be beaten, something he felt came particularly to the fore against La Rochelle in the Investec Champions Cup two weeks ago.
It took a proper team effort to come back from what at one stage looked a hopeless position against the European champions, and Plumtree hasn’t been shy to admit in recent weeks that becoming a team in the proper sense of the word is still a work in progress for him and his men. And it’s why he considers his first personal trip to DHL Stadium as a massive challenge.
AT SOME STAGE THEY WILL CLICK
Yet Stormers defence coach Norman Laker was right when he said earlier in the week that you can’t have seven World Cup winners in your squad - that’s how many Laker counted - and go into any game without any hope.
“At some stage they are going to click,” said Laker, “I just hope it isn’t against us.”
If the Stormers aren’t complacent and they are at their best they should be able to withstand a Sharks team that clicks. The worry from a Cape viewpoint should be that there have been two games in successive weeks played with test match intensity and physicality. The Sharks by contrast have had a week of rest.
Not that the fact the Sharks have effectively had a break and the Stormers haven’t should necessarily make a difference. For while Plumtree has been forced to play what he considers his top team for most of the season, with the return of the Springboks, who themselves have played a lot of rugby, being the only change up, the Stormers, like the Vodacom Bulls, have been much more liberal in using their squad. The Stormers frontline players rested when the second stringers went to Leicester Tigers and nearly won, and most of them missed the last URC tour match against Cardiff.
CREATING DEPTH THE LONG TERM GOAL
Contracting, and the building of depth, is clearly one of Plumtree’s primary focuses as he plots the way forward for the Sharks. He’d probably heard from mates how bad the contracting at the Durban franchise has been since he departed in 2013, but seeing is believing. On paper at least the top team has the ability to challenge anyone on its day, but the commitment to both URC and Champions Cup makes it impossible to play your top team all the time.
Creating the depth that will enable him to, as he put it, select healthy athletes in all games is a long term process though. A more immediate one, and the one which appears to be most bothering Plumtree in the here and now of preparing for a game against the Stormers, is the apparent inability of his team to put together an 80 minute effort.
He agreed the game against Connacht, the first home match after the URC tour, was a great advert of the template he wants to become second nature for his side. The Sharks played high tempo rugby that day. But they didn’t keep it going over the full 80 minutes.
“It was good but then we’d have a poor scrum, a poor lineout, or we’d make a bad decision or make some other error. We just haven’t been able to put it together for 80 minutes and I think we are some way short of being able to put that right,” said the former All Black and Ireland assistant coach.
SHOULD BE A GOOD SPECTACLE
If they do get it right, they might just challenge the Stormers. But Plumtree didn’t take the bait when it was suggested to him that playing against a side he obviously personally rates so highly and even openly admires presents an opportunity for the Sharks to turn around their season.
“It is an opportunity (to test ourselves) but even if we win one swallow doesn’t make a summer. We need to be where the Stormers are, where they produce consistent performances. It took time for them to get where they are, and while I remain convinced it will come, it will take time for us to do that too.”
After last week’s win over the Bulls, the Sharks are not under quite the same level of intense pressure they were, but they do need the win to maintain a challenge for a top four spot and the resulting home ground advantage in the first playoff game. The Sharks need to win just to maintain any hope of finishing in the top eight, and thus qualifying for next season’s Champions Cup, a goal that looks more distant every time they lose.
Both teams are committed to attacking rugby and neither of them could be described as risk averse, so on a dry Cape summer evening there’s every possibility that the two teams could dish up a classic from a spectacle viewpoint.
Vodacom United Rugby Championship weekend fixtures
Benetton v Zebre (Treviso, Saturday 15.30)
Benetton currently occupy third position on the overall log and are also maintaining a strong challenge on the Glasgow Warriors in the Scotland/Italy Shield and they should continue to do that by winning their home derby. They won by seven points away in Parma last week.
Prediction: Benetton to win by 15
Edinburgh v Glasgow Warriors (Edinburgh, Saturday 17.30)
There were 12 points separating the teams in Glasgow last week but Edinburgh coach Sean Everitt, with the expectation of a mostly Edinburgh supporting crowd of more than 30 000 at Murrayfield, should be confident of pushing the team coached by his countryman Franco Smith this time around.
Prediction: Glasgow to scrape a narrow win.
DHL Stormers v Hollywoodbets Sharks (Cape Town, Saturday 19.00)
There’s one thing in the Sharks’ favour in comparison to their most recent defeats, which came in Pretoria and Bloemfontein - this game is not at altitude and it is also being played in the evening. No matter what anyone says, for a coastal team to go to altitude at this time of the year and play in mid-afternoon, and both those games were played in intense heat, is a tall order. Particularly when your mission is to play high tempo rugby. The DHL Stadium in an evening game should be a more pleasant venue for them, and the dry conditions will favour their own playing template more than the humidity of Durban. But while the Stormers are rightly wary of a possible Sharks purple patch, there’s a reason they boast such a formidable record at home and they are aiming to make it a second successive calendar year where they haven’t been beaten by a fellow South African team.
Prediction: Stormers to win by 8
Connacht v Munster (Galway, Monday 17.00)
The champions are sixth, which is a much better placing than they were in this time last year, but after losing to Leinster last week and with two less than satisfactory results in the Champions Cup before that, Munster will be desperate to get back to winning ways. Galway is a tough place to go though, and Connacht have their own mission after losing by one point to Ulster in the Christmas derby. It is a hard game to call, but one thing is certain - it should be close.
Prediction: Connacht to win by less than 7.
Ospreys v Cardiff Rugby (Swansea, Monday 17.00)
As the teams from the Principality always appear to be languishing on the overall log, it is easy to forget about the Welsh, but the appreciative full house that watched the Boxing Day derby between Cardiff and the Dragons at Arms Park is an indication that the Welsh don’t forget about the Welsh. This game has extra spice added to it by the fact that both teams are locked together on 20 points, which means a stalemate in the Shield, and they are also just two points off the top eight. Cardiff have good form - they were really impressive in dispatching the Dragons - but Ospreys have home ground advantage and their opponents don’t travel well.
Prediction: Ospreys to win by 8
Dragons v Scarlets (Newport, Monday 19.15)
This match between the 14th and 16th placed teams may attract the interest of the people living in Newport and Llanelli, but it won’t have any meaningful impact on the log.
Prediction: Dragons to sneak it.
Leinster v Ulster (Dublin, Monday 19.15)
Ulster have arrested their slide and were back on the winning trail in their last two games - one in the URC and one in the Champions Cup - with former Stormers captain Steven Kitshoff appearing to make a difference. But in Dublin their opponents, who have now won nine on the bounce across all competitions, should be too good for them.
Prediction: Leinster to win by 12