Hollywoodbets Sharks players Siya Kolisi of, Nick Hatton, Manu Tshituka, Phepsi Buthelezi, Matt Romao and Vincent Tshituka celebrate after beating Bulls 21-12 in the United Rugby Championship derby at Kings Park in Durban on Saturday. The Sharks took the field for the SA derby clash with the Bulls in front of a heaving 45000-strong holiday crowd, and clad in a curious strip of red and maroon stripes, coloured with yellow. The Sharks’ New York owner, Marco Masotti, told yours truly that it was a one-off strip to symbolise fire and energy.
Fair enough, maybe these Americans know what they are doing, because it was fire and energy that propelled the Sharks over the line with two gutsy tries towards the end of the match, the killer blow after 70-odd minutes of arm wrestle to secure the 21-12 result. The return of the Springbok front row of Wilco Louw, Johan Grobbelaar and Gerhard Steenekamp had changed the dynamic of a Bulls team that had lost their four previous games, and the pre-game talk was about whether the Sharks front row could cope, especially without the presence of injured Bok giant Ox Nche. But in the early scrum exchanges, the Sharks’ first line of scrumming defence — Hanro Jacobs, Bongi Mbonambi, and Phatu Ganyane — stood their ground.
The question was whether they could go toe-to-toe with arguably the best front row in world rugby? Still, the Bulls were generally the stronger starters, and the Sharks were fortunate to escape with a goal-line dropout after a Bulls maul seemed to have crashed over for a try just five minutes into the match. The Bulls continued to be the more threatening team, and when flank Juandre Rudolph broke out from deep in the Bulls’ half and thundered 40m before being tackled, the Sharks seemed doomed to concede a try; however the resulting pass out wide was brilliantly intercepted by fullback Hakeem Kunene, who took the ball 60m in the opposite direction for a try the 22-year-old will never forget.
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A Handre Pollard penalty, almost from the restart, limited the damage of the against-the-run-of-play Sharks try. The Springbok flyhalf showed his class a few minutes later when he nailed a 40m penalty from not far off the touchline. Just as it seemed the Bulls were building a stranglehold, flyhalf Jordan Hendrikse put Ethan Hooker through a gap and the Springbok centre screamed towards the tryline.
He was stopped just short, but Phepsi Buthelezi picked up and dived over. Hendrikse was about to take the conversion when the infernal TMO intervened and ruled that the No 8 had knocked on, when it did not seem so. The try was chalked off.
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