[2018 Super Rugby] Round 12: Sharks vs. Highlanders (05/05/2018)

[TRF_heineken]

Venue: Jonsson Kings Park Stadium​

Time: 17:15 CAT (SA, GMT+2)​

 

[Big_Grumper]

I literally cannot separate these two. Highlanders' better overall form versus Sharks' home advantage.

 

[Gena_ZA]

Second match of the tour syndrome vs. Sharks home ground and they need to win to have a decent chance of playoffs
Sharks by a whisker

 

[mania]

sharks have home adv that could make the difference here. this will test landers on whether they can dig deep into those dark places where the animal in you wont quit.

 

[AM_Bokke]

Are the Highlander's ABs gonna play? They are the difference between these sides. Without Sopuaga and Smith I will pick the sharks.

 

[Cruz_del_Sur]

Very impressed by the sharks.

 

[unrated]

Happy with the win and the manner in which it was done. They need to keep this up now but the Sharks are like the franchise version of the French so we can expect a diluted performance coming up soon.

In all seriousness the Sharks coaches should get in some psychologists to help with the player mentality.

 

[SomeOke]

Huuuuge performance from the Sharks, to be fair and up front the Highlanders played poorly, but perhaps you need the Kiwi sides to play poorly to beat them, this wasn't just a win this was a paddlin. Bonus point win agaisnt a Kiwi side - those don't come around very often.

Sharks were basically good from 1-15, Beast in some of the best form of his carerr, Thomas du Toit has taken a shockingly small amount of time to adjust to the tight head role, JLDP... he's just a beast truly a world class talent (those offloads on such a huge man, sploosh). Bosch at 15 is turning out to be a great fit, running good lines at pace, as always putting his massive boot to good use, and looks full of confidence. Andre Esterhuizen looks like a completely different player, he's always been a massive man who break the gainline, but he's added some elusive running and a distributing game to match it. RDP going from strength to strength, in 2016/2017 he walks into the Bok side, sadly for him all the 10's are looking sharp.

Some very exciting players at the Sharks at the moment, if only they'd managed some level of consistency this year they really should be pushing for a top spot rather than fighting for the play-offs.
Anyway enough fellating the Sharks, but was a great game!

Highlanders won't be too worried, a rare blip on the second game on tour, but still exciting stuff.

 

[Big_Grumper]

I'm disappointed by the result but really pleased for the Sharks. It finally came together and they 'clicked'.

 

[mania]

nice sharks. not surprised after sharks performance vs the canes. canes were lucky then.
does anyone else have an ominous feeling that SA is on the rise?

...about frkn time. sa have all the tools now. they just need rassie to get them to work as a team. if rassie didnt have a quota it'd be easy.

 

[Bruce_ma gooshvili]

The freakish highs and lows of the Sharks is even more inexplainable than the Jekyll and Hyde like Stormers (depending on if they are playing at home or not). Never a dull moment in the SA conference!

Surprised by Bosch taking to being at fullback. He seemed quite restrained at flyhalf from what I saw if him so I didn't think he'd have the creativity or elusive running to excel at 15.

 

[Kiwiwomble]

wow...what a hiding...did not enjoy getting up to watch that.

Sharks came at us with so much energy, i think a lot of our mistakes were actually forced by either the pressure they put us under or just by being 14 points down so quickly...people were trying to pull off these miracle moves

 

[Gena_ZA]

50 shades of Sharks...