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Steve Haag Gallo Images<\/p>\n
Bismarck Du Plessis is recovering from a knee injury, but he’ll out of action for a while.<\/p>\n
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Durban \u2013 The good news for the Sharks is that mighty battleship Bismarck du Plessis is firmly on track in recovering from a serious knee injury he sustained last year. <\/p>\n
The bad news is that he will only be making his appearance in about the eighth round of the competition, just in time for the renowned Crusaders to slip into to town for a long-awaited visit. <\/p>\n
\u201cGenerally we are in great shape,\u201d said assistant coach Grant Bashford. \u201cEveryone has been working really hard on their conditioning \u2013 the boys are really feeling it at the end of each hard week. <\/p>\n
\u201cUnfortunately, we do have a couple of niggles, especially in the front row, although the only major one is Bismarck du Plessis, who will miss some game time. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re now coming towards the end of the pre-season and we\u2019re all looking forward to playing \u2013 that warm-up match next week comes at just the right time.\u201d <\/p>\n
The Sharks play the Leopards at Woodburn Stadium in Pietermaritzburg next Friday, and then travel to Nelspruit to for a warm-up match against the Pumas on February 15. <\/p>\n
Bashford said the team were working hard at their attacking structures, as well as their defensive work. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re getting there from a team perspective and we have some idea of the teams we want to play in the two friendly games. They\u2019re starting to work together as units. <\/p>\n
\u201cAt this stage, we\u2019re pretty happy with where we are at,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s not just the fact that we have only two new players in Franco van der Merwe and Butch James, but some of the so-called youngsters are into their second and third campaigns of Currie Cup and Super Rugby. <\/p>\n
\u201c <\/p>\n
I think, in a tournament like this, you will pick up losses, but it\u2019s about being able to improve each week. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe need to be consistent so we don\u2019t lose twice in a row and I think that\u2019s where we let ourselves down last year, we got on a losing roll and then had to get onto a really big winning roll to get there.\u201d <\/p>\n
The Sharks begin their Super Rugby campaign with a local derby in Bloemfontein against the Cheetahs on February 23, and return to Durban to host the Stormers on March 2. <\/p>\n
\u201cFor us, it\u2019s all about improving our consistency: it\u2019s no good starting well and finishing badly or the other way around, but that you\u2019re in the race the whole way through, performing week in and week out.\u201d \u2013 The Mercury <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Steve Haag Gallo Images Bismarck Du Plessis is recovering from a knee injury, but he’ll out of action for a while. Durban \u2013 The good news for the Sharks is that mighty battleship Bismarck du Plessis is firmly on track in recovering from a serious knee injury he sustained last year. The bad news is […]<\/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-17698","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\/17698","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=17698"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17698\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17698"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17698"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17698"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}