Sharks looking for confidence boost

LAST season’s humbling experiences have given Sharks director of rugby Gary Gold an idea of the blessings that were not available to him.

One of those is being able to rotate a relatively injury free squad early in the Super Rugby season and having to face his team’s arch-rivals only once in this year’s tournament.

The Bulls may be a team in transition, but tomorrow evening they will ask different questions of a re-jigged Sharks team that sports five changes from the one that beat the Stormers at Newlands.

Gold knows a victory will be an accurate assessment of where his team is, with the threat of the New Zealand teams and the Lions looming on the horizon.

“A win at Loftus would do our confidence a world of good,” Gold said. “That ground, along with Newlands, are not grounds we’ve done very well at in the recent past.

“It’s something we targeted at the start of this campaign with how the start was going to be. If our planning in the past two weeks allows us to snatch a second win, it will be very important for us.

“The Stormers and the Bulls were two teams we identified as benchmarks to see how we’ve progressed in the preseason. Regardless of the result, we showed the fight in Cape Town and I hope we can do the same this weekend.

“A win at Loftus makes us know we can go to difficult places and obtain results.”

Lourens Adriaanse, Phillip van der Walt, Kyle Cooper, Michael Claassens and Lwazi Mvovo are the changes.

The permanent swaps are Jean-Luc du Preez, with a foot injury, and Sibusiso Sithole.

Keegan Daniel worms his way onto the bench along with Coenie Oosthuizen, Odwa Ndungane and Franco Marais.

Loftus Versfeld has not been kind to the Sharks nor have the Bulls been very generous to the Durban franchise.

Nine of the past 12 meetings between the teams have gone the way of Nollis Marais’ team, including the double snared by Frans Ludeke last season.

Captain Tendai “Beast” Mtawarira is aware of the work needed to do to beat the Bulls.

Mtawarira, Marcell Coetzee, JP Pietersen, Mvovo, Daniel and Ndungane are the only survivors of the Sharks’ 26-23 win at Loftus Versfeld in 2011.

That was the last time they beat the Bulls in Pretoria.