Sharks hope for dogfight

Ken Borland

The Sharks travelled to New Zealand adamant that they were not just going to bow down before the almighty Crusaders in their Super Rugby quarterfinal in Christchurch on Saturday, but the statistics surrounding the match do not make happy reading for Robert du Preez’s side.

The Crusaders have won all three of their previous play-off games against the Sharks and have not lost any match against non-New Zealand opposition in 16 outings.

South African teams have been to New Zealand for play-off games on a dozen occasions and are yet to return home triumphant.

While the two teams have been the best defensively in the competition, the Sharks have a popgun attack in comparison to that of the Crusaders.

No-one has scored more tries than the defending champions this season and they score as many from first phase, especially rolling mauls, as they do from phases four-to-six, indicating a side that has more than one avenue of attack.

So the Sharks are going to have to box extremely cleverly to stop the red-and-black juggernaut, who beat them 38-6 the last time they were in Christchurch, in 2014.

They may be without the physicality of Jean-Luc du Preez, but Andre Esterhuizen is still there.

The Crusaders have one of the best scrums in the competition and they have been the second-best team in terms of ruck efficiency, so attacking those phases may be a vain hope for the visitors.

But if the Sharks can turn the game into a real dogfight, tackling everything that moves, then they have the ability to cause problems for the Crusaders with their offloading skills and their ball-carriers who are able to beat defenders.

It really is the battle between the most consistent side in the tournament – the Crusaders enjoying a 12-game winning streak – against the most inconsistent. The last time the Sharks won back-to-back games was on May 5.