Am ready to be handy this season

LUKHANYO Am, who’s Springbok season was stymied by injury last year, has admitted that he has even impressed himself on his return from a wrist injury.

The Sharks centre was rewarded as Player of the Season for the Sharks last year, and will no doubt have an important role to play as the Durban outfit prepare for Super Rugby.

Am, pictured, was part of a scrappy first outing in Cape Town as the Sharks, under the cloak of Black panther, took on the Lions in the guise of Spiderman in a sell out Super Hero day. They will have their chance to tackle Captain America – The Bulls – in Ballito on Saturday at 2pm.

“I’ve been impressed with myself because I’ve been out for about four months but in building up to the warm-up games‚ my confidence has been up and with the work that I’ve put in during pre-season‚ I’m in good shape‚” Am said.

“In these pre-season games‚ we’ve been trying to implement what we’ve been doing at training and we actually take more risks because there’s not a lot of consequence of losing or winning the game.

“It’s really good to have tough competition before the tournament proper because the standard of Super Rugby is very high.

“From these games‚ we’ll measure where we’re at now and what we need to do going into the tournament.”

Am offers the Sharks a lot of intelligence and skill in the backline, especially next to the barnstorming Andre Esterhuizen, who will no doubt be the first-choice No 12 when the Sharks travel to Singapore to take on the Sunwolves in their opening fixture.

Am has also been working on his attacking game with the Sharks’ attack coach David Williams providing a lot of help for the centre.

“We’ve (Am and Williams) worked on a few different things but because we’ll be facing a number of teams during the season and different defensive systems, he’s been pushing us to adjust on a week to week basis,” said Am.

“He’s been really working on our shape and the way we want to play in this tournament.”

“Without tries‚ you can’t win games and that’s what we’re working on at the moment.”

The Sharks have been looking to add an attacking edge to their game for a few seasons now, and their successful Currie Cup campaign will no doubt help in giving them the belief that they can duke it out with some of the bigger teams in Super Rugby.