NATIONAL NEWS - If you asked Cell C Sharks coach Robert du Preez what he wishes for most from Friday night’s Super Rugby warm-up clash with the Toyota Cheetahs, a safe passage through the 80 minutes for all the halfbacks might feature quite high up on his list.
The past few years have seen early season injuries to key players that have derailed the Sharks plans, with Pat Lambie, who captains the side in this game at the King Zwelithini Stadium in Umlazi, being ruled out in the pre-season in 2016 and only making it onto the field in May.
The concussion he suffered in the first test match of the season at Newlands in June saw him miss the rest of the Sharks’ campaign, with his appearances in the black and white No 10 being limited to just three.
Another player who missed most of the year through injury was Cobus Reinach. The Springbok No 9 returns to rugby on Friday off the bench and will be eager to get going again after spending almost a year sidelined.
When he is on top of his game Reinach is an important player to the Sharks, as is Lambie, and you sense if they want to improve on last year’s efforts, when they were the third South African qualifier for the play-offs, it might depend on those two being fit and able to make on-field contributions.
Friday’s match will kick off at 6.30pm and contrary to earlier impressions, the main game will be played over a full 80 minutes (it is the curtain-raiser between teams made up of Cheetahs and Sharks fringe players that will be played over just 60 minutes).
Du Preez has called up what he considers a near full strength side for the game against the Currie Cup champions, who lost 43-7 to the DHL Stormers in Harare last weekend. It is clear that Du Preez is seeing the match as a dress rehearsal for the opening Super Rugby clash with the Reds in Brisbane at the end of the month.
“We are playing two games and while the earlier game will have a number of players pushing for a place in the side for Brisbane, the team for the later game will closely resemble what we have in mind for the Reds,” said Du Preez at the team announcement press conference in Durban.
“But there are still three weeks to go until that match and we play another game against the Bulls next week so we must not get ahead of ourselves.”
Du Preez, who takes over as head coach this year from former director of rugby Gary Gold, who resigned in the off-season, says his charges have travelled a long way since the end of the Currie Cup season, which ended disappointingly for the Durbanites when they failed to secure a place in the play-offs.
