sHARKS

[BDAVEY]

there hasnt been too much discussion about the match ?? sounded all EWF roll on The Reds and then the real stuff.
Still would like to see JOC ar 12.... ! Hosking will have to play well sounds like Wykes had a blinder and Andres put through Sheps and Wykes for their tries well done good to see he looks for support and his team mates know what he is doing. Gits made the breaks but no one new where he was going to next!!!

[padbury]

Force whitewash the Sharks
Tue, 26 Jan 2010 20:53



The Western Force bounced back from their drubbing at the weekend to hand the Sharks a 26-0 thrashing in the second match of the tri-series at Newlands on Tuesday.

Thank heavens for James O'Connor, the Australian wonderboy. He was the bright star on a drab night. In fact thank heavens for the Western Force, for they played all the rugby.

The visitors from Perth won the tackle hands down and took six line-outs off a ponderous Sharks' side who offered little to the match.

These two matches have been oddly arranged. In each half of both weaker played against stronger. In this match the Force started with their stronger side, the Sharks with their weaker and in the second half the reverse happened. Each side had 12 replacements/substitutes and in some instances replacements came back for no reason that exits in a law book.

The substitutions with several other breaks robbed the match of any possibility of momentum, though it started with so much promise with the Sharks tackling with a purpose and the Force running straight and energetic lines. The Sharks had to tackle as the Force made possession their own.

Bushy-haired Sam Wykes won a line-out on the right deep in Sharks territory. They went left, got quick ball back from a tackle and flyhalf André Pretorius flicked a clever pass back infield to Wykes who steamed over for a try. 5-0 after 6 minutes.

Force domination continued and their second try was also off a switch in direction - a simple one as they went left and Ryan Cross cut back onto a Pretorius pass and cut through the widening Sharks defence to score under the posts. Pretorius converted. 12-0 after 20 minutes. O'Connor apart, they were the best of the match.

The Force carried on attacking and again attacked from a line-out with Wykes doing much of the bashing and then suddenly that went left where Cameron Shepherd was too fast for Steven Sykes. He scored in the left corner and Pretorius swung the conversion over from touch. That happened on 30 minutes. There was no further score for the next 49 minutes.

The Sharks had a chance to attack but with two men outside of him Monty Dumond kicked and in no time the Force were back battering at the Sharks line till Richard Brown was penalised at a tackle.

The Sharks had an attacking line-out after a penalty but Nathan Sharpe stole their ball.

The Sharks started the second half with 11 new players on the field. For the first 20 minutes it was all Sharks, but with no points, not even when Nic Henderson was sent to the sin bin for repeated infringements but his team.

The Sharks had a brief moment when Rory Kockott broke and Ryan Kankowski tried to carry it on, but the spark soon expired - as did Kockott who appeared to lack fitness as he dawdled about the field. The Sharks had four five-metre line-outs and three five-metre scrums and did not really look like scoring.

The two bright moments in the half were provided by O'Connor. First he broke and raced at astonish speed down the left side of the field and the Force nearly scored - astonishing as much of the time he dances.

Then near the end Kockott chipped the ball to the Force and O'Connor raced down the field, suckering Odwa Ndungane with a dummy to score under the posts. O'Connor converted.

There was a minute to play till the siren wailed the end. It was not a match to remember. Add to the numerous substitutions and stoppages, 31 penalties and a mess of scrums, and you have a recipe for tedium.

Of the 31 penalties, 15 were at the tackle as players learn the new emphasis on tackle infringements.

Scorers:

For the Sharks:
None

For the Western Force:
Tries: Wykes, Cross, Shepherd, O'Connor
Cons: Pretorius 2, O'Connor

Yellow card: Nic Henderson (Western Force, repeated infringements)

Teams:

The Sharks: 15 Stefan Terblanche, 14 Luzuko Vulindlu, 13 Waylon Murray, 12 Riaan Swanepoel, 11 Lwazi Mvovo, 10 Monty Dumond, 9 Rory Kockott, 8 Ryan Kankowski, 7 Jean Deysel, 6 Keegan Daniel, 5 Steven Sykes, 4 Alistair Hargreaves, 3 Jannie du Plessis, 2 Craig Burden, 1 Tendai Mtawarira.
Replacements - from: Bismarck du Plessis, John Smit, Johann Muller, Jacques Botes, Charl McLeod, Andries Strauss, Odwa Ndungane, Patric Cilliers, Willem Alberts, Gerhard Mostert, Patrick Lambie, Adrian Jacobs, JP Pietersen.

Western Force: 15 James O'Connor, 14 Dane Haylett-Petty, 13 Ryan Cross, 12 Sam Harris, 11 Cameron Shepherd, 10 André Pretorius, 9 Brett Sheehan, 8 Richard Brown, 7 David Pocock, 6 Matthew Hodgson, 5 Nathan Sharpe, 4 Sam Wykes, 3 Matt Dunning, 2 Ryan Tyrrell, 1 Kieran Longbottom.
Replacements - from: Mark Bartholomeusz, Tim Fairbrother, Nic Henderson, Tom Hockings, Mitch Inman, Ben McCalman, Chris O'Young, Richard Stanford, Mark Swanepoel, Joshua Tatupu, Ben Whittaker, Joelin Rapana.

Referee: Jonathan Kaplan (South Africa)
Assistant referees: Matt Kemp (South Africa), Quinton Immelman (South Africa)

By Paul Dobson
http://www.rugby365.com/tournaments/...ws/2188040.htm

[GIGS20]

It is hard to make too much of the match Bill, I can only get clear impressions of the tries, and they all seem to be good, but it looks a bit like they were against sloppy defence.

The report Padbury put up (apart from being confused about it being a trial and therefore if they wanted to pick law to bits it was between them and the ref) spoke about Rabbit being great in attack (which means 15's not hampering him in that regard) and spoke about a couple of switches.....I take both of those things as great signs. I reckon the switch has been nonexistent in our game since Gits grabbed the #10 and I don't think it's helped our outside game at all. Ryan Cross isn't a Stirling Mortlock, he just doesn't look to the inside, the inside pass to Wykes probably set Crossy up with the room he needs to exploit a gap with what he's good at, strong running on the outside shoulder.

It'll be good to see the Reds match and be able to make a real judgement on the team I'm pretty confident that Mitch has things going OK and wouldn't be calling for radical changes until I've seen them.

---------- Post added at 09:24 ---------- Previous post was at 09:23 ----------

ps also good to hear that the second half was their strong side against our weak side, we held them out, which means our new boys are at least close

[James]

The one great thing to come out of this is that our scrum seemed to have dominance over both the Stormer and the Sharks. In fact in the Sharks case, against a very formidable if not A team front row, we bashed them around a bit. Still dominating the scrums with a man down. Which is something new as in past years our scrum has been in the bottom one or two in the competition.