Never discount Canes’ pedigree
SHARKS: WON’T BE MISLED BY HOME TEAM’S PATCHY FORM
Sharks coach Sean Everitt has warned that the Hurricanes, despite having to travel basically around the world to get home, will be ready and waiting for them when they meet in a Super Rugby clash in Wellington this morning.
The Hurricanes won Super Rugby in 2016, having been runners-up the previous year, and they have reached the semifinals for the last three years so their pedigree is established. But it is difficult to know what to make of them at the moment considering their first two performances this year have been so disparate – an awful hammering against the Stormers at Newlands was followed by a come-from-behind win over the Jaguares, finalists last year, in Buenos Aires. Plus they have had to fly from New Zealand to South Africa to Argentina and now back home in the last couple of weeks, while the Sharks arrived in the Land of the Long White Cloud at the start of last week.
“The Hurricanes have had two vastly different performances but we saw glimpses against the Jaguares of what they can do, such as that last try running from deep inside their own 22. They like to increase the tempo and there are not many teams that come from behind to win in Argentina. So we’ve got to be alert.
“We can’t take their travel into consideration, we’re not going to play into that talk. They will have recovered and make no mistake, they’ll be ready for us. But our preparation has also gone well, the weather has been great and the guys feel at home, although it is not as warm as Durban, which is fortunate from a training perspective,” Everitt said.
While the Sharks went into their superb win over the Highlanders last weekend with a definite plan to play with ball-inhand, it was the ruthlessness with which they struck with turnover ball that marked out their triumph. Taking on the Hurricanes with the same strategy would be taking them on at their own game, and this time there is no roof to prevent the outside conditions from having an influence. The Sharks have also generally enjoyed more success against the Wellington team by using more forward-oriented tactics.
“If the weather allows, we would like to do more of the same, but the conditions can change in a matter of hours over here. But we hope to be able to unleash our backs again. We didn’t expect to be that far ahead at halftime against the Highlanders, but we mustn’t forget it was still an arm-wrestle for the first 20 minutes and we had to defend really well.
“I was very happy with how we executed off that ball. Makazole Mapimpi and Aphelele Fassi are important in terms of their flair and excitement,” said Everitt.