Plenty at stake for Sharks

IT might only be round six of 18 in the Super Rugby competition, but it is already desperation stakes for the Sharks as they face the Melbourne Rebels at Jonsson Kings Park this Saturday (5.15pm). The Durbanites started the season with a flourish, impressively beating the Sunwolves in Singapore and then the Auckland Blues at Jonsson Kings Park, but then at home were soundly beaten by the Stormers before receiving a drubbing from the Bulls in Pretoria. Last week the Sharks had a bye week, and when the dust had settled on round five they found themselves down the ladder in fourth place on the SA Conference, just one place above the last-placed Jaguares (from Argentina). The Sharks had topped the log for three rounds and had looked like the South African team to beat until they came off second best in a fortnight of derbies against the Stormers and the Bulls. Both of those teams have leapfrogged the Sharks on the log, as has the other South African team, the Lions, who stunned the Rebels at Ellis Park at the weekend with a miracle comeback from 33-5 down to snatch a 36-33 win. So the Sharks have lost two in a row and are now in a must-win situation considering it is also a home game. A basic premise of Super Rugby is that success depends on winning your home games and then picking up as many points as you can on the road. So after losing at Jonsson Kings Park to the Stormers, the Sharks have to nail the Rebels on Saturday, especially as they are in for a tough return match with the in-form Bulls next Saturday, (March 31) also in Durban. The ruthless manner in which the Bulls dispatched the Sharks at Loftus Versfeld in the teams’ last match before their mutual bye week suggests the Sharks will need every inch of home ground advantage they can muster. The Sharks will have noted how dangerous the Rebels can be with quality possession. They remain top of the Australian Conference despite the lastgasp loss to the Lions, with three wins from four games. They have brilliant playmakers in Wallabies Quade Cooper and Will Genia, and have raw speed out wide, plus a combative pack spearheaded by Wallaby lock Adam Coleman.