Sharks facing hostile trip to Buenos Aires

TENDAI MTAWARIRA was in solemn mood yesterday when made an apology for the Sharks “no-show” last week against the Rebels before grim-facedly promising: This one is for the fans.

He is talking about Saturday night’s Super Rugby return match against the Jaguares in Buenos Aires, a match the Sharks have to win to stay ahead of the currently third-placed Argentines in Africa Conference 2.

A loss would be catastrophic for the Sharks’ playoff aspirations. “We are very disappointed in our performance (in drawing 9-9 with the weak Rebels at Kings Park),” the player known as The Beast growled. “We are going to rectify matters. We had a heck of an analysis of that Rebels game and that has set the tone for the week. We have put ourselves in a position where this could be a season decider.”

After the match, angry coach Robert du Preez, amongst other things, he pointed the finger at his senior players.

Mtawarira, a former captain of the Sharks, knows he was one of the players Du Preez was alluding to. This week the coach wants less of Tendai and more of The Beast.

“The senior players could have done better,” he admitted. “The onus is on the guys that have been around a while to gear the youngsters up and steer them in the right direction, lead from the front and show them what is expected.”

Mtawarira said this week’s game was about attitude and sticking to the structures that the players have had drilled into them since pre-season, and not panicking as they did against the Rebels.

“We know exactly what we have to do. We must stick to our processes and then execute properly. Last week we could not finish anything,” the 31-year-old said. It truly is a big game for the Springbok loosehead, who has a national record of 87 caps for a Bok prop. There are several young bucks out there trying to get the attention of national coach Allister Coetzee.

“It is going to be tough. It always is. The crowd is hostile and very noisy. There is a lot of banging and shouting and the home team feeds off the emotions of the crowd. The trick is to not get side-tracked by the side-shows in the stands and rather feed off the atmosphere as the home team does, rather than be intimidated by it.”

“They are going to come at us... but we have to be smart in how we play and don’t get sucked into playing to their strengths,” he said. “Discipline is vital. We have been bringing our penalty count down. Problem is, when we do get penalised, it is usually a card or something costly!”