The Leinster coaches traded their Heineken Champions Cup hats for their Vodacom United Rugby Championship hats from Monday as they moved on from their team’s rousing victory over Toulouse and switched focus to this coming week’s clash with the Cell C Sharks.
With a lot of the South African interest appearing to be focused at the moment on the north/south derby repeat of last year’s final between the DHL Stormers and Vodacom Bulls, the Sharks have been a bit under the radar heading into their URC quarterfinal. If it is an indication that not many people are giving them a chance of beating the top ranked team, perhaps that will work in the Sharks’ favour.
However, what it doesn’t appear the Sharks can rely on this year is the shock value that the Bulls brought to their semifinal against Leinster last year. Leinster assistant coach Robin McBryde started the buildup week with a press conference where the Champions Cup final against LaRochelle seemed to be the main preoccupation of the Irish media, but McBryde made it clear that everything right now is focussed on the Sharks and the threat they might bring.
“There were certain things that hurt us last year and then we got caught out against the Bulls, and we are aware of the similarities this time with regards to that,” said McBryde.
“The Sharks have spent a couple of weeks just preparing for this game and they will be arriving here quite early in the week, as the Bulls did last year. There are lessons we can learn from what happened last year. Emotionally it is going to be tough to get up (for another big playoff game after what happened against Toulouse) but we cannot get caught up making the same mistakes again. And we won’t be caught again.
“We know the level of opposition we are up against this weekend and it is going to be an equally tough game (to the one against Toulouse). Our game against them earlier in the year was a close enough affair and it was a very physical game. They have big forwards and talented players and gave us a tough game last time and we are not expecting anything less on Saturday.”
Leinster ended up winning 54-34 in the league game played in Dublin in October but for much of the way the Sharks were competitive and as that scoreline suggests, they did hurt Leinster with some of their attacking play. It should also be noted that the Sharks team that played that day was without the Springboks, who were preparing for their end of year tour.
The Boks will be back this week, although the Sharks have been hurt by injuries to some of their marquee players, with Eben Etzebeth out for the season and Siya Kolisi and Jaden Hendrikse also out. Flyhalf Curwin Bosch sustained a rib injury in the URC draw with Munster at HollywoodBets Kings Park 11 days ago.
However, the Sharks still have the services of an all Springbok front row, James Venter with his fetching abilities could be a good replacement for Kolisi, particularly if Leinster field their Irish international star Josh van der Flier, and Aphelele Fassi’s return to fitness should mean he fits easily in at fullback to allow Boeta Chamberlain to move to No 10 if Bosch isn’t there.
Of course, Fassi is just one X-factor Bok at the back for the Sharks, with Lukhanyo Am and Makazole Mapimpi both potent enough on attack to hurt Leinster should they get the ball to play with.
Meanwhile it will be interesting to see what team Leinster select for this game, as McBryde alluded to “a fine balancing act” when it came to keeping players fresh and also battle hardened. Several of the players who starred against Toulouse in the HCC semifinal did not tour South Africa and thus had not played a game for at least three weeks, which might have been a borderline too long a break.
So Leinster might opt to go full strength against the Sharks, something they did not do against the Bulls in last year’s semi, in a quest to ensure the players who played against Toulouse get up further playing momentum.
“The ones who hadn’t traveled to SA got lots of weeks off and it is always tough to get that balance right,” said the Leinster assistant coach.
McBryde confirmed that some of the injured players who missed out on the Toulouse game could be back in the mix for selection this week, including centre Robbie Henshaw and Ronan Kelleher, who have been given time to prove their fitness after missing out on the semifinal.