Jaden may be next best thing
YOUNG SCRUM-HALF TO START CURRIE CUP FINAL
Twenty-year-old scrumhalf Jaden Hendrikse has been pushed front and centre by the Sharks as he will be starting in the Currie Cup final against the Bulls in Pretoria on Saturday in the only change from the semifinal line-up announced by coach Sean Everitt yesterday.
It has been an age since South Africa had such riches at scrumhalf, with World Cup star Faf de Klerk and Cobus Reinach overseas, Ivan van Zyl being consistently slick for the Bulls and Herschel Jantjies (WP) and Embrose Papier (Bulls) finding some form as well.
And then there are the young talents at the Sharks; Sanele Nohamba has just turned 22 and is an exciting prospect even though he will be on the bench for the final, while Hendrikse is rated by Everitt as the next big thing.
“Jaden was actually supposed to start last weekend but he had a stomach ailment for most of the week so we thought it best to put him on the bench. He’s a good decision-maker at the base, a good defender and he even gets turnovers at the breakdown. But the main thing with him is his game-management, he conducts the play really well.
“Jaden is a tremendous talent, he’s a former nominee for World Junior Player-of-the-Year for a reason and he has big game experience at U20 level. Then we will look at Sanele to bring tempo. He has a different skill-set, he knows our plays really well and has come along nicely in terms of maturity. The last 20 minutes is going to be one of the most important parts of the final and Sanele can close out the game well,” Everitt said yesterday.
One of the great successes of the Sharks’ game-plan at Newlands last weekend was the way they demolished the Western Province maul, which was one of the home side’s key building blocks of success this season.
There are a few more Bulls buildings that the Sharks will need to demolish because their opposition has a greater range of attacking weapons than last week’s rivals, but being able to negate the Bulls’ lineout drive will stand the KwaZulu-Natalians in good stead.
“Everyone says how badly Western Province played, but noone gives the Sharks any credit for how many mauls we defended. The plan was to not give them any lineouts, we gave them 13 but we stopped them all,” Everitt pointed out.