While there is every chance that Springbok captain John Smit might be fit to face Griquas, it looks unlikely that Bok lock Johann Muller will join him in the squad.

“John is getting better, he’s had a bruised nerve in his neck and had some strength loss down one arm, but it’s coming back and I’m hoping he might be ready for this week,” the Sharks coach told a media briefing.

“However, Johann is getting frustrated with his arm [fractured back in Week One].

“It just doesn’t seem to be coming right, every time he takes a knock, it flares up.”

The Sharks need to take a full-house of five points from their final league match, in Kimberley, if they hope to keep alive their dream of a home Final.

Having already secured home ground advantage in the semifinals, with their opponents still to be determined, it is now all about overtaking Western Province at the top of the standings.

Both the Sharks and WP are on 49 points, but Province have a better points differential (221 for WP, against 178 for the Sharks).

While the Sharks will have their work cut out against Griquas – who themselves need two points from the game to qualify for the play-offs – WP need to overcome the Lions in Johannesburg and earn a bonus point if they want to stay top and retain the right to host the Final.

And, as the Sharks found out in Durban at the weekend, the Lions are certainly no pushovers.

Plumtree was full of praise for the men from Johannesburg, following his team’s fortuitous 19-17 win.

“Let’s talk about the Lions,” he said after the match. “If they played with that kind of attitude and guts throughout the season, I guess they’d be in the top four. They were outstanding at the breakdown, didn’t miss many tackles, they came here and played like we thought they would.”

Plumtree pointed out that the Lions probably won the battle of the breakdown thanks to their size advantage.

“They were immense in the collision areas and we couldn’t get any go-forward and spent a lot of time going backwards; we had a lot of slow ball. We couldn’t get our game going and didn’t help that with some errors, playing too laterally, we were impatient and the only thing I can say is that it was a timely wake-up call about Absa Currie Cup rugby.”

He added that it was a matter of not being able to build any continuity in their play, without having effective front foot ball to play with.

“We couldn’t create the space we wanted to, we weren’t effective at the collision area and they were really aggressive on the ball and that didn’t allow our game to flow. It turned out to be a real fight, and a fight we had to win.

“We had to find a way to win because we weren’t going to do it by playing good football, because we weren’t able to. We were a bit smaller than them so couldn’t really win those collisions; it was pretty hard work really.”

With Ruan Pienaar having been entrusted with the goal-kicking ahead of regular Juan Hernandez, Plumtree explained that the Argentinean just didn’t have a good week.

“He was struggling with his back and Ruan kicked nicely during the week, so it was nice to see him kick so well.”

Source: rugby365.com

Griquas came from behind in a hard-fought match on Saturday to beat the Lions 36-31 and keep their Currie Cup playoff hopes alive with flyhalf Naas Olivier contributing 26 points in a faultless display of goal kicking. It was a tough encounter on the hard field of Hoërskool Diamantveld where the match had to be moved because of the GWK Stadium being used for a soccer fixture. Although the commitment of the two sides cannot be faulted, too many handling mistakes and some poor options distracted from making it an outstanding match.

The Blue Bulls ran the Boland Kavaliers off their feet on Saturday, beating the home team 72-16 after leading 22-16 at halftime.  The Bulls, who took total control in the second half, scored 10 tries to one and got their bonus point try in the 49th minute when replacement flanker Derick Kuun dotted down his first of three tries. With a well-deserved victory and an easy five points the Bulls are firmly in contention for a place in the play-offs. The Bulls scored 50 unanswered points in the last 40 minutes and  destroyed the Boland defence.

The Sharks returned to the top of the Currie Cup log when they beat the Free State Cheetahs 24-13 in a fast-moving match in Durban on Saturday, also bringing an end to the Cheetahs’ six-match winning streak.

Both sides scored two tries, with the Sharks’ brace early in the match breaking the visitors’ confidence and momentum. The home team deserved the win after dominating the possession stakes while also making fewer errors.
The Cheetahs, who had started off the better of the two sides and again briefly looked like possible winners shortly after the break, at times scrummed the Sharks back and did their fair share in the lineouts. However, too many turnovers from insecure handling let them down at crucial times and they were punished with both Sharks tries coming from concentration lapses by the Cheetahs.

Source + Pic: sarugby.com