Sharpe to duel with Matfield in lineout

[travelling_gerry]

Bret Harris | August 03, 2009

Article from: The Australian

WALLABY second-rower Nathan Sharpe will be a key figure in the Test against the Springboks in Cape Town on Sunday.

Sharpe will be pitted against the world's premier lineout forward, Victor Matfield, in one of the most important head-to-head clashes in the match.

Just a year ago Sharpe was omitted from the Wallabies squad for their two-Test tour of South Africa.

Even though he joined them in South Africa as an emergency replacement for the injured Dan Vickerman, Sharpe did not make the Test squad.
Critics began to question whether Sharpe still had the capacity to play at the Test level, but he reinvented himself on the Wallabies' end-of-season tour of Hong Kong and Europe.

Sharpe played one of his best games in the Wallabies' win against England at Twickenham.

It was a physical game against an opponent that had dominated the Wallabies in the contact zone in the past, but Sharpe stood up to the English forwards.

He then broke his hand early in the Wallabies' win against France and played the following week in the loss to Wales, displaying a toughness that his critics did not believe he had.

The Wallabies will need Sharpe to step up again if they are to upset the Springboks, whose game-plan revolves around the lineout.

The Springboks employ a simple, but effective strategy of kicking for the corners, dominating the lineout and using the rolling maul to force the opposition into error or infringement.

"Nothing changes for us," Sharpe said. "We have to be on top of our game in that area (lineout).
"Matfield reads the lineout well and backs his throwers. When they are on song, they are hard to defend.

"You add Juan Smith and Pierre Spies to the equation and they've got a pretty healthy lineout.

"We've worked hard in that area and hopefully it will stand us in good stead."
The All Blacks virtually conceded the lineout to the Springboks in their consecutive Tests losses in Bloemfontein and Durban over the past two weeks to prepare to combat the rolling maul.

But the Wallabies will look to contest the lineout.

"They (the All Blacks) were quite concerned about the Springboks' mauling play from lineouts so they decided not to challenge in the air," Sharpe said.
"To beat the Springboks you have to contest them right across the park."

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au...015651,00.html

[Sheikh]

From what I recall of the Bulls-Force game this year Sharpe wasn't troubling Matfield too much at the line-out.

[James]

Bleh. As good as Matfield is, with those games without Sharpe last year as the exception, he and Bakkies haven't dominated the Wallabies line-out at all since 2005. We may not pressure them but I doubt they'll come close to applying the same kind of pressure they put on the rest of the rugby world.

[GIGS20]

50-50 would be my call coming into the match......Sharpie makes some.......ummmmm.....innovative calls into the lineout, he's just really hard to read. That will be the difference between him and Matfield, more accurately the similarity, Matfield will make more conventional calls and do them with razor sharp efficiency, what Sharpie lacks in precision, he'll make up in deception.