{"id":22063,"date":"2013-08-22T01:40:54","date_gmt":"2013-08-21T23:40:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/new-sharks-recruit-marais-aims-for-springboks\/"},"modified":"2013-08-22T01:40:54","modified_gmt":"2013-08-21T23:40:54","slug":"new-sharks-recruit-marais-aims-for-springboks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/new-sharks-recruit-marais-aims-for-springboks\/","title":{"rendered":"New Sharks recruit Marais aims for Springboks"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\t    <a href=\"http:\/\/mysport24.co.za\/?attachment_id=14187\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-14187\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\" wp-image-14187 \" alt=\"SP Marais says his chances of a Springbok call up are better with the Sharks. Photo: Rugby Week\" src=\"http:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-content\/plugins\/rss-poster\/cache\/5c0aa_SP_Marais22.jpg\" width=\"420\" height=\"245\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-caption-text\">SP Marais says his chances of a Springbok call up are better with the Sharks. Photo: Rugby Week<\/p>\n<p>New Sharks recruit SP Marais said it was difficult to leave Port Elizabeth for Durban, after his recent switch from the Southern Kings, but felt the move was important for his long-term goals.<\/p>\n<p>The 24-year-old was the biggest pre-Currie Cup signing for the KwaZulu-Natal side and their new coaching staff.<\/p>\n<p>Marais revealed on Tuesday he turned down offers from the Bulls and Cheetahs following his former team\u2019s relegation from Super Rugby.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThere were a few options but I had to look at the bigger picture,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI had to make a sound decision and, for any rugby player, the most important thing is your game time and that was one of the big factors that brought me here.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The Cape Town-born player made a successful start with the Sharks scoring a match-winning try on debut against the Lions last Friday.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAs you see, I\u2019ve been here a week and already got the opportunity,\u201d Marais said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI need to use these opportunities now, so that when Super Rugby comes around next year, I\u2019ve already found my place here.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/mysport24.co.za\/southern-kings-marais-joins-sharks\/\" target=\"_blank\">His decision to leave Eastern Province was based on his ultimate goal to play for the Springboks<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIf you want to go further and into the green and gold, then this is the way to do it.\u201d \u2013 <a href=\"http:\/\/www.thenewage.co.za\/\" target=\"_blank\">Sapa<\/a><\/p>\n<p>For more SP Marais news,\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/mysport24.co.za\/tag\/sp-marais\/\" target=\"_blank\">click here<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>For more breaking sporting news and views, visit MySport24 on\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/MySport24\" target=\"_blank\">Twitter<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/mysport24?ref=hl\" target=\"_blank\">Facebook<\/a>.<\/p>\n<h6 class=\"zemanta-related-title\">Related articles<\/h6>\n<ul class=\"zemanta-article-ul zemanta-article-ul-image\">\n<li class=\"zemanta-article-ul-li-image zemanta-article-ul-li\"><a href=\"http:\/\/mysport24.co.za\/southern-kings-marais-joins-sharks\/\" target=\"_blank\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-content\/plugins\/rss-poster\/cache\/5c0aa_191676021_80_801.jpg\" \/><\/a><a href=\"http:\/\/mysport24.co.za\/southern-kings-marais-joins-sharks\/\" target=\"_blank\">Southern Kings\u2019 Marais joins Sharks<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><a class=\"zemanta-pixie-a\" title=\"Enhanced by Zemanta\" href=\"http:\/\/www.zemanta.com\/?px\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"zemanta-pixie-img\" alt=\"Enhanced by Zemanta\" src=\"http:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-content\/plugins\/rss-poster\/cache\/7c7b0_zemified_h.png\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>SP Marais says his chances of a Springbok call up are better with the Sharks. Photo: Rugby Week New Sharks recruit SP Marais said it was difficult to leave Port Elizabeth for Durban, after his recent switch from the Southern Kings, but felt the move was important for his long-term goals. The 24-year-old was the [&hellip;]<\/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":[3258,830,885],"class_list":{"0":"post-22063","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-south-africa","7":"tag-mysport","8":"tag-news","9":"tag-sport","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\/22063","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=22063"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22063\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22063"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22063"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22063"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}