Dawn salutes Jake and Sharks
The last two times these sides have faced each other, the Sharks were beaten!
To add insult to injury, Steve Walsh was the ref for the game played last year and he had a shocker! As I told Smitty and Terra when they joined me in studio via Umlazi, every time I think about that match, my back goes into instant spasm!
Needless to say, I was totally unimpressed when I heard that he was ref again.
As I arrived at the game on Sat, I was given a gift worth more to me than diamonds! It is a portable ref cam with an earpiece. I could hear EVERYTHING that the ref and boys were saying on the field. I could even hear the wind! Amazing, entertaining and very useful. Walsh calls everyone mate, and says ‘yeah matey’ a lot!
I thoroughly enjoyed the fast-paced, tense encounter on Sat. Our forwards were outstanding. The boys played for position, demolished the Highlanders in the scrums and took any points on offer. The Highlanders, though, proved to be extremely stubborn and refused to give up (in similar style to a summer rash!).
They are an extremely dangerous side, in that, they thrive on broken play and their off-loads are things of beauty. They can and did attack from anywhere. We ended up going into half time behind on the score board. I had a few choice things to say at half time and it clearly filtered down. The boys came back and worked together as a team to achieve the end result. Tonderai literally made my jaw drop with his sprint to score. It was a beauty of an off-load from Bizzie that Tonderai caught seamlessly and went on to outrun all the Highlander defenders.
Bismarck aka ‘Bliksem’ was in top form and deserved his MOM award. Marcell was excellent as usual by scoring the first try off the back of a driving maul. Seeing Lambie come on together with Charl just delighted me and the Durban faithful. Fransie was outstanding and I really wish that some journo’s, (you know who you are), would stop writing rubbish articles about him.
The Durban crowd of slightly over 30 000.00 supporters, were truly amazing and I would like to thank them from the bottom of my heart for the support given to the boys during the match.
I really commend Jake and team for coming through and qualifying for the 8th time for a SupeRugby Semi-final playoff spot. The win is a testament to his outstanding coaching abilities and he has an uncanny knack of getting the best out of the boys when it is necessary. I am so very proud and delighted with my babies for coming this far against the most difficult odds. They are the only SA side to finish in the top 3 and they proudly carry all of our hopes and dreams.
Onwards and upwards to the final darlings! Sharks Unite!
(File photo:Gallo Images)