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Before the Sharks\u2019 must-win match against the Bulls a few weeks ago their coach, John Plumtree, spoke about \u201ctwin barrels\u201d pointed at the collective forehead of his team\u2026 the Sharks won the match with a brilliant display. <\/p>\n
They then beat the Cheetahs at home, again with the gun to their head, and then won in Brisbane in a knock-out game, despite being written off. So will the underdog\u2019s tail wag once more for the once again under-pressure Sharks when they visit the table-topping Stormers at Newlands tomorrow? <\/p>\n
No 8 Ryan Kankowski, who is enjoying the form of his life, puts it this way: \u201cThe Sharks like making things tough for themselves. We only seem to play when there\u2019s a knife against our throat,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n
\u201cWhen we have put ourselves under pressure, we tend to come out on top, and there is no greater pressure in Super Rugby than having to beat the Stormers in front of a sold-out Newlands.\u201d <\/p>\n
He is quite right. The Stormers know that if they get over the line ahead of the Sharks they have the glory of a home final next week against the winner of today\u2019s semi-final in New Zealand between the Chiefs and the Crusaders in Hamilton. <\/p>\n
The winner of that game will be cheering the Sharks louder than anybody in Durban because if the Stormers lose tomorrow, the final will be in either Hamilton or Christchurch. <\/p>\n
In short, the Stormers hold all the aces \u2013 but they have to get past the Sharks\u2026 <\/p>\n
History certainly favours a home win. Since the competition started in 1996, teams playing at home have lost only five out of 32 semi-finals. However, this has happened twice to the Stormers at Newlands \u2013 in 1999 against the Highlanders and in 2011 against the Crusaders. <\/p>\n
And the Sharks are one of only four teams to have won a semi-final away from home \u2013 in 1996 against the Reds when there was a precursor to their performance last week in knocking the Queenslanders out of the competition at the quarter-final stage. The Crusaders have done it twice, the Brumbies once and the Highlanders once. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe are confident we can do it,\u201d Kankowski said. \u201cThe guys have been gelling well since the June break in the tournament (for the Boks\u2019 series against England). We\u2019ve had enough time to get settled and have accumulated some good wins (Bulls, Cheetahs, Reds). <\/p>\n
\u201cThe Stormers will feel they are refreshed after a week off but we reckon momentum is with is with us, so each team fancies its chances,\u201d Kankowski continued. \u201cWe\u2019ve prepared well, we went down to Cape Town a day early (yesterday) to get into the groove, and hopefully all our plans will fall into place.\u201d <\/p>\n
One of the main reasons for the Sharks\u2019 recent success is that they have at last got their set piece functioning well. The scrumming is now a strong point thanks to the all-Bok front row of the Du Plessis brothers and The Beast, while the lineout, for so long a weakness that was pin-pointed by other teams, is now a strength. Kankowski has been crucial to its revival as when he returned to the starting line-up from injury, he assumed the responsibility of calling the lineout. <\/p>\n
\u201cRyan can take credit for the good job he has done in calling the lineouts,\u201d coach John Plumtree said. \u201cThe boys have been really switched on and delivered some nice options. We know it\u2019s an important area of our game because it has been targeted, so we\u2019ve put a big focus on it. Our scrum has been going well, our set piece been a major plus. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe restart was an area that hurt us earlier in the season, but it hasn\u2019t been a problem for us recently. But we know the Stormers provide a real challenge in that area, so we will have to make sure we\u2019re on the mark.\u201d <\/p>\n
Plumtree used Bok flank Willem Alberts to telling effect at lock last week and he will be in the same role tomorrow, but the coach says Alberts does not have a traditional second row job. <\/p>\n
\u201cI am not using him in a traditional locking role. He wasn\u2019t involved in a lot of lineouts against the Reds. We left him to his running game and the only area he was really tied up in was at scrum time. I thought it was a positive. I can say that because we won, but his involvement in the game was good and we will look to continuing that. <\/p>\n
\u201cA positive as well is that it kept together the loose forward trio that has been going so well. There is always going to be a bit more pressure at lineout time, but Keegan, Ryan, Willem and Anton did really well against the Reds. But we know it\u2019s an area the Stormers will target, they\u2019re pretty tall and we will need to be sharp with our lineout.\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Before the Sharks\u2019 must-win match against the Bulls a few weeks ago their coach, John Plumtree, spoke about \u201ctwin barrels\u201d pointed at the collective forehead of his team\u2026 the Sharks won the match with a brilliant display. They then beat the Cheetahs at home, again with the gun to their head, and then won in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[8275,953,2143],"class_list":{"0":"post-12886","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-south-africa","7":"tag-durban","8":"tag-newspaper","9":"tag-the-mercury","10":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12886","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12886"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12886\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12886"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12886"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12886"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}