It would be easy to couch Saturday’s third round Vodacom United Rugby Championship clash with Benetton as the end of a three game tour, which in itself is normally considered a tough assignment. Yet, for the Hollywoodbet Sharks, it’s been a lot more than that.
Although they played both games in South Africa, the Sharks had to win the Carling Currie Cup the hard way, with the semifinal against the Vodacom Bulls and the final against the Fidelity ADT Lions both being away from home.
More than that, they had to go to 100 minutes, to one of the last moves of an extended game that went into extra time, to get past the Bulls.
It was former Springbok and Bulls coach Heyneke Meyer who used to talk about how when you rub coal together you get diamonds.
Sharks coach John Plumtree should feel the same about this tough five week road trip to start the new season - his players have been to the coalface and that will have toughened them mentally, if perhaps leaving them a bit wanting at times physically.
And provided of course they do win their final game before they return home to play two big URC games against the past two champions, first Glasgow Warriors and then Munster, Plumtree might just feel a schedule he has always been critical of had benefits in the sense that it will have created a good platform for what is to come.
There is a caveat there though - defeat to Benetton in Treviso on Saturday, and a two loss in three starts on their URC tour, will leave his team short of their target in the competition that should really matter to them.
And it will be easy to then blame the Currie Cup scheduling for that, as it did appear to cost them in the opener against Connacht, where they appeared to run out of legs in the second half.
The last time the Hollywoodbets Sharks faced Benetton in the #VURC, it ended in heartbreak in Durban 💔🦈
— SuperSport Rugby (@SSRugby) October 9, 2024
Will the outcome be different this time around when the teams square off on Saturday afternoon? pic.twitter.com/M1CT65bMWr
EXPECTING BENETTON TO BE TOUGH
Plumtree knows Benetton, who have made a poor start to the season, will be smarting after consecutive comprehensive losses to first the champions, Glasgow Warriors, and then perennial challengers and Investec Champions Cup finalists Leinster at home. And he reckons that will make them tougher.
“This team has been on the road for a long time and getting a win here would really finish off a great little block of games that we always knew would be challenging,” said Plumtree.
“It will be a massive physical challenge because we know they’re going to come hard at us, and we’ve got to play for long periods. The field’s also going to be sticky, we’ve had a lot of rain here in Italy.”
A decision still has to be made, but the plan was always for the Sharks to welcome back their top Springboks for the clash with Glasgow Warriors at Hollywoodbets Kings Park on 19 October, and that appears to be on track, with the Sharks coach saying that his marquee players are eager to play.
“I think they need to play before they go on (Springbok) tour because they’ve had a couple of weeks off now. But that’s not the most important part of it for me – the important part of it for me is they want to play.”
Plumtree said he was particularly encouraged by the eagerness of the new record holder for the most Bok caps, Eben Etzebeth, to get back into the Sharks jersey.
“I’ve already had a chat with Eben and he’s dying to get back into it. I asked him if he was off cloud 100 and he ensured he was and ready to go back to work.”
Plumtree said he will base his decision around who plays and who doesn’t against Glasgow and then Munster the following week around injuries and an assessment of potential fatigue after a long international season which followed closely on the end of South Africa’s professional franchise/club season, which is now aligned with the northern hemisphere.
PAST EXPERIENCE MIGHT GUIDE SELECTION
He will also know only too well from past experience, most notably a Currie Cup semifinal against the Cheetahs in 2009, when his Boks arrived back from a successful Tri-Nations campaign perhaps over-confident and it contributed to an upset defeat, and the 2011 domestic final, when his Boks were hungover after a World Cup exit, that just assimilating names back into a workable unit is sometimes easier said than done.
“We’re confident those boys will be wanting to get back out there in the Sharks jersey, but the challenge is how we’re going to integrate them because there’s quite a few. I’ll make that decision after this game.”
That last comment can be interpreted as a motivation for the team that will play in Treviso.
Plumtree is giving a start to Bok tighthead Trevor Nyakane and has also promoted Fez Mbatha into the starting line-up but mostly he has stuck with the continuity mantra that has worked well for him so far.
A good win over Benetton away from home might just prompt him to stick with many of the same players for at least another week, with the Boks perhaps being bled back into the team off the bench.
🔥Your Hollywoodbets Sharks team for Saturday 🔥
— The Sharks (@SharksRugby) October 10, 2024
Read full team release article on https://t.co/x0ptcB9tCW@vodacom #URC #BENvSHA pic.twitter.com/jGOPZaP5eA