Gold on captaincy and more
Gary Gold has spoken to the media ahead of the clash between his Cell C Sharks and the Highlanders on Friday.
The Sharks will meet the Highlanders in Dunedin.
Kickoff is at 09h35 in the morning - South African time.
Captaincy?
The situation is this: Bismarck has shown incredible humility about his personal situation over the past month and he feels that he just wants to get back into The Sharks team and make as big an impact as he can. It’s unbelievably noble of him to have this attitude and a much bigger deal as far as news goes than it is for us. Marco Wentzel has done a good job and he will retain the captaincy.
We have been really impressed by Bismarck’s attitude, he’s come into the team, he wants to prove his worth and play well for The Sharks again. This has been driven by him and he wants to play well and we’ll back his selection to give him that opportunity.
As far as I’m concerned, what’s happened has happened, he’s paid the price and we must move on now.
After 10 weeks, you finally got the bye. How are the energy levels?
It’s been exceptional. We had a run on Saturday morning before we left and on Monday had one of the best training sessions we’ve had this year. I think the break was desperately needed, from the point of week-in and week-out rugby. Obviously things haven’t necessarily been going our way which has been a bit unfortunate, but they managed to get a break, spend time with their families and they came back raring to go. Everyone is excited about the challenge.
Players filtering back in - is there a sense that this could be a really good tour?
I’m not into predictions, but at the end of the day, we realise that mathematically, we still have a chance to resurrect this season and give ourselves a chance to get into play-off contention, and that’s what our focus is. Our immediate focus though is on this game ahead of us (the Highlanders). We’ve prepared well for Friday, we have some very tough games on tour, we know this.
The spirits are high at the moment and it’s a boost in strength and depth to have people like Bismarck and Stefan Lewies back with us and coupled with that is the fact that I don’t think we played badly against the Lions and Bulls.
The guys are very positive and enthusiastic, they’ve really embraced the tour and we’ve had some fantastic training. It will be a tough contest in Dunedin but if we play well on the weekend we can pick up a good result and get a nice head of steam and have a good, successful tour; that’s the goal.
Highlanders?
They’re a very good team, they have a good balance, a good scrum and lineout with lethal backs, the likes of Aaron and Ben Smith, Patrick Osborne, Malakai Fekitoa and so on. It will be difficult, although weather won’t be a factor because of the roof which was always a neutralising factor for them in the past [before they played without a cover] because of the rain and difficult conditions. But it does definitely work in their favour now.
We saw with the Brumbies (against the Highlanders) that if you stick to your basics well, you can be successful against the Highlanders. However, they will be smarting after the weekend’s loss to the Brumbies, no doubt, it will be a very tough challenge.
(File Photo: Andre Bloem)
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