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Sharks' challenge is to live with Bulls' tempo

football06 June 2025 04:30
By:Gavin Rich
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Hollywoodbets Sharks © Getty Images

The Hollywoodbets Sharks might have been looking forward after their dew-impacted Durban games to playing on a dry surface better suited to attacking rugby but they may be in two minds about that now as they head to Loftus for Saturday’s Vodacom URC semifinal.

Sharks coach John Plumtree was in agreement when it was suggested to him in the team announcement press conference before last week’s game against Munster that if they got through that, they’d have a chance to click their attacking game against the Vodacom Bulls. But he balanced that out with a reminder that it has been a while since his team has played a really quick-tempo game.

While the Sharks will be challenged if the Bulls make a quick start and are able to take them out of their comfort zone, they have shown this season that they have the composure to withstand pressure and to come through in the high-pressure moments. So it will be an intriguing battle between two good teams.

The Loftus game is the second of the two semifinals that will be played on Saturday, and most South Africans' focus will be on that, but there’s also plenty of interest in what happens before that. If Glasgow Warriors can continue where they left off against the DHL Stormers when they play Leinster at the AVIVA Stadium, the winner in Pretoria will be hosting the Grand Final next weekend.

 

 

First semifinal

Leinster v Glasgow Warriors (Dublin, Saturday 15.45)

The semifinals have produced upsets in every year the competition has been played, and every time, Leinster have been at the heart of it. In the inaugural URC season, it was the Bulls that knocked them over in Dublin, and in the second, it was Munster’s turn to do it at the Aviva Stadium. Last year, there were arguably two upsets - the Bulls knocked over Leinster, although you might hesitate to call it a shock as they did have the higher seeding, while Glasgow provided the real shock by traveling to Munster and winning.

Leo Cullen, the Leinster coach, remembers that result in Limerick and it was part of his rallying cry to both the team and their supporters this week. There was a crowd of just 12 879 at the quarterfinal, and while Scarlets aren’t the greatest draw for spectators, that was still disappointing and perhaps symptomatic of how Leinster’s fans are feeling right now. In other words, they feel let down by their team’s unexpected defeat to Northampton Saints in the Investec Champions Cup semifinal.

HANGOVER FROM SAINTS DEFEAT

The Leinster players have also been showing signs of a hangover from that game, and only got home by 12 points last week. That followed a sluggish eight-point win over Warriors the last time these two teams met.

There was a stage of the second half of the game that showed the real challenge Leinster face in this game - it is about facing down themselves and the nerves that appear to creep in every time they are properly challenged by an opponent. Perhaps it is because they usually win so comfortably, but Leinster do tend to become nervous once another team is in range, which the Warriors were once they came back to 7-5 and served notice they were making a game of it.

That wasn’t a playoff game, but that could mean Leinster this week will feel the pressure of all that weight created by past playoff failures across both this competition and the Champions Cup even more.

 

 

Glasgow’s close game against Leinster three weeks ago atoned for a 52-0 defeat at the same venue in the Champions Cup, and their statement performance against the Stormers last week would have been a further boost to their confidence.

For all that, it is Leinster who start as favourites, not least because Glasgow have injury issues they were able to overcome against the Stormers, but won’t find the absences as easy to cover against a team as strong as Leinster. Huw Jones may well be back, which is one leveller, but the likes of Jack Dempsey and Zander Fagerson will still be missing.

Prediction: Leinster to win by 12

Second semifinal

Vodacom Bulls v Hollywoodbets Sharks (Pretoria, Saturday 18.15)

Hollywoodbets Kings Park, particularly when the conditions are rendered treacherous for handling by the dew, is not the same as the fast surface at Loftus, where if you make a mistake in the opposition 22 you could find yourself back in your own red zone or conceding a try a matter of a few seconds later.

There’s a lot of too-and-fro at Loftus, a lot of movement backwards and forwards, and while everyone loves to talk about ball-in-hand rugby, the contestable kicking focus and transitional play that is the modern way in rugby can also leave players puffing for air. Particularly at altitude, and no one in the Durban team’s camp will need reminding that Saturday’s venue is 1350 metres above sea level, something that Leo Cullen, the Leinster coach, agreed was a big obstacle for his team when they came to Loftus and lost in the corresponding match last year.

Of course, a week later, Glasgow Warriors, coached by a South African in Franco Smith, had no such problems with altitude, and the local coastal teams boast a fair recent record in URC games played in Pretoria. So it may well be less of an issue for the Sharks. Nonetheless, Plumtree might remember how his team, in their quest to out-tempo the Bulls, almost ran themselves off their own feet in his first return there since coming back to South Africa last November.

Admittedly, that was at a hot time of the year and there was the double whammy of it being a mid-afternoon kick-off, whereas this game will be starting in the evening, after the sun has sunk. It is easier then.

There haven’t been too many high-tempo encounters that the Sharks have been involved in during the last two months. Most of their games have been too error-ridden for that. But what the Sharks will have is street smarts, and that was what has arguably got them over the line in their most recent games against the Bulls - home and away in the URC, and in Pretoria in a Currie Cup game that went to extra time and, like last week, ended deadlocked in extra time. On that occasion, the Sharks had scored more tries than the Bulls, so that was the tiebreaker.

BULLS HAVE IMPROVED A LOT

Bulls coach Jake White has been unequivocal with his view that his team has improved a lot since then, and both Plumtree and Siya Kolisi, who fronted a press conference earlier this week, agree with him, although it is obvious anyway. Just as the Sharks have grown their confidence by finding ways to win, so the Bulls have built confidence by establishing a winning habit.

It hasn’t tended to be as close for them as it has for the Sharks, so ironically, that may be one disadvantage, but any team that goes to Munster and Glasgow Warriors in successive weeks and wins has a lot going for it.

 

 

As Kolisi pointed out, the Bulls have threats across the park. Yes, they can play the game fast, but they also have a mighty scrum, perhaps the best in the competition, while they play a lot and achieve a lot off their strong lineout. Their mauling is as strong as it gets, and Keagan Johannes has, over the past few game,s quietly allayed concerns about the impact of the Bulls missing their specialist first-choice flyhalf, Johan Goosen.

It is indeed easier to talk about what the Bulls have been doing well than what the Sharks have been doing well, because the Bulls have been better at producing something approaching a recognisably good performance than a Sharks team that has found ways to win but has at times been pilloried for their lack of style.

COMING RIGHT

There were signs though that the Sharks were building into their game last week after another slow start, and by the end of the 80 minutes, even though the Sharks came back from a 21-10 deficit with 16 minutes to go, it was pretty freaky that the game had to go to extra time. The Sharks should have put them away before then, and in extra time, which they dominated, too.

There are several matchups in the game that should capture the imagination, and of course, the two Springbok-laden scrumming units have been the subject of much focus. If the scrums do decide the game, it won’t be the first time that has happened.

But for me, an even more decisive decider of this game will be the aerial contest, and it just so happens that there are two Bok fullbacks, one the future and the other a part of a celebrated past, Aphelele Fassi of the Sharks and Willie le Roux for the Bulls, who will have key roles to play. The same can be said for Canan Moodie on the one side and Makazole Mapimpi and Ethan Hooker on the other. It’s a pity Kurt-Lee Arendse wasn’t back and fit for this game to give the two opposing back threes even more of an international flavour.

The two teams were yet to be announced at the time of writing, but expect them to be similar to the ones that started last week. This is a really difficult game to call, but somehow the fact that the Sharks were able to get home under such pressure last week suggests that the stars are aligning for them.

Prediction: Sharks to edge another close game.

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