Shark Attack Fezzles Out

An in someway-strange interlude in the middle of a busy season saw Saracens taking on the might of the Sharks from Durban. It’s 3 weeks from the start of the Super XV season when the Sharks open against their compatriots the Blue Bulls. So preseason for them but the end of a 9-week stretch of Premiership and Heinekin Cup matches for Sarries.

Much has been made of the timing of the match with the Newcastle No 3 fly half describing it as “a kick in the teeth”. Utter rubbish of course few if any of the players selected for this match would take part in the LV Cup and there is of course lots of history behind such matches from the memorable nights recently when Tigers beat the Maoris and Sarries beat South Africa to further back the touring club sides. The main impact is of course a week less rest for many Saracens players hopefully that won’t come back to bite us later in the year!

It was clear once the teams were announced that both sides were taking the match seriously with 8 Springboks in the Sharks team and 11 internationals in Sarries Team despite losing players to England and the Saxons. The Sharks front row is the current Springbok team and how must Richard Barrington have felt a year ago he was on the bench for Jersey against Rotherham today he’s facing the Du Plessis brothers and the Beast!

We turned up what we thought was quite early to find the ground already buzzing with Sharks or Springbok shirts everywhere and the South African accent prevalent. They mainly seemed to be aged early 20s to mid 30s and few were seen without a pint and/or food in their hands. There were long queues at the food stalls and the beer tent unfamiliarity with AzP, many were at that time unaware of the other outlets and in particular the Olympic bar. A quick visit to the shop I managed to obtain a couple of scarves to send to my SA friends but was told the Sharks’ shirts had sold out nearly 2 hours before the match and that there had been queues to get in when the gate opened. An unwelcome aspect was the bag search on entrance hopefully that will be a one off. Edward Griffiths could be seen wandering the ground with his camera and a broad smile.

We took our usual seats and the crowd seemed predominately SA. We had been told that ticket sales were roughly half existing Sarries supporters and half SA but it felt more SA to us. As always with a SA crowd they were noisy, funny, totally un pc and myopic!

The Sharks took the pitch in their Grey change strip and were clearly up for the match which they started ferociously with their big ball carriers Jean Deysel, Willem Alberts and Bismarck Du Plessis making inroads soon resulting in a penalty which the young English born fly half Tim Sweil converted. It was clear that this match was not going to be a friendly in the usual pre season terms despite the Sharks rustiness.

Weathering the initial onslaught Saracens were able to use their mid season fitness and cohesiveness to obtain dominance which was to last for the rest of the first half. A dust up between Burger and Jannie Du Plessis resulted in a missed Charlie penalty with groans and memories of the Connacht match around the Sarries faithful. We needn’t have worried. The scrum was dominating the Sharks with Barrington to the fore and another penalty was successfully converted. Charlie quickly added another penalty to take the lead.

Sarries now had the bit between their teeth and were attacking with increasing venom leading to a yellow card for the Sharks lock Etienne Ousthuizen which led to one of the games controversial moments. A medic was tending Mo Botha and the ref, Tim Wigglesworth seemed to raise his hand indicating time off but Charlie took a quick tap from almost immediately behind Botha, passed to Strettle who sauntered in. Charlie converted but if looks could kill the fourth official would have been needed.

From kick off an awkward challenge by the remaining Sharks’ lock Pieter-Steph Du Toit resulted in another though contentious yellow card and the visitors were down to 13 men! So Saracens would obviously dominate the next 8 minutes. No way: the cards and try seemed to be what the Sharks needed with Bismarck leading from the front and the backs threatening despite a retreating pack with the young centre Esterhizen featuring strongly.

However, having negotiated the yellow cards and the clock running down a floated pass by Sweil was picked out by Hodgson who managed to make the 40 metres to the line. The clock was run down and it seemed all the back up staff had left pitch side so despite calling for a kicking tee Charlie finally gave up and dropped a goal.

Sarries lead 20-3 at half time and the suspicion was that their superior match fitness would lead to a comfortable victory however, the cards and possibly the feeling of being hard done by for the Strettle try galvanized the Sharks who had a much better second half. A lengthy delay early into the second half for an injury to Lwazi Mvovo seemed to halt Saracens momentum and the Shark replacements seemed to work well. Regularly breaking the gain line resolute defense led by Burger and the rejuvenated Mo Botha was needed to stem the flow. However, a yellow card to Matt Stevens changed the game. A great line break by the impressive Tera Mtemba broke Sarries defense and Esterhuizen scored. Sweil converted and it was game on.

Fierce rucking soon led to another score for Williams in the corner and though the conversion was missed the score was 20-15 and Sharks tails were up! However at that moment the heavens opened bringing what one friend described as biblical weather and Sarries defense was resolute. Battling back they managed to give Hodgson a penalty chance and a monster kick in appalling conditions just made it giving Sarries breathing space which enabled them to see out the match.

So was the match of any benefit? Maybe more so to Sharks who will have learnt much from the game but also to Sarries. On a purely commercial front the ground was almost full so 9K plus ticket sales and more than £60,000 was spent at the bars over 2.5 times the normal amount. The shop was very busy as were the food outlets. As someone said if we had played this at Vicarage Road then we would have got none of this! How times have changed! More importantly you hear from everyone at Saracens that this Club is about making memories and this fixture had them in bundles from the old fashioned Thursday night get together to the post match celebrations.

It also appears that the memories aren’t going to stop there. Attempts had been made to make this match a double header at Twickenham so strong had been the enthusiasm of the SA teams but no other AP team would play ball. Jake White was keen to point out that an overnight flight and 2 hour time difference was much easier to manage than the trips to Oz and NZ. Variously we heard that John Smit will be arranging a summer return fixture and that this fixture will become a regular feature though with alternating SA clubs.

Teams:

Saracens:

15 Chris Wyles; 14 James Short, 13 Michael Tagicakibau, 12 Marcelo Bosch, 11 David Strettle; 10 Charlie Hodgson, 9 Neil de Kock, 8 Ernst Joubert 7 Jacques Burger, 6 Justin Melck, 5 Mouritz Botha, 4 Steve Borthwick (captain), 3 Matt Stevens, 2 Schalk Brits, 1 Richard Barrington

Substitutes: 16 Scott Spurling, 17 Nick Auterac, 18 Petrus Du Plessis, 19 Tom Jubb, 20 Takashi Kikutani, 21 Richard Wigglesworth, 22 Duncan Taylor, 23 Sam Stanley

Sharks:

15. Tyler Fisher, 14. Odwa Ndungan, 13. Paul Jordaan, 12. Andre Esterhuizen, 11. Lwazi Mvovo, 10. Tim Swiel, 9. Cobus Reinach, 8. Willem Alberts, 7. Jean Deysel, 6. Tera Mtembu, 5. Pieter-Steph du Toit, 4. Etienne Oosthuizen, 3. Jannie du Plessis, 2. Bismarck du Plessis (captain), 1. Tendai Mtawarira

Substitutes: 16. Kyle Cooper, 17. Dale Chadwick, 18. Lourens Adriaanse, 19. Stephan Lewies, 20. Jacques Botes, 21. Charl McLeod, 22. Heimar Williams, 23. Jaco van Tonder

Referee: Tim Wigglesworth