Sharks v All Blacks prediction: Springbok-shorn hosts to ‘make a memory’ and the contest that could have ‘genuine consequences’ in Greatest Rivalry series
Could Ma'a Nonu face off with Jordie Barrett in the Sharks v All Blacks clash?
The All Blacks arrive in Durban with a side carrying much of Dave Rennie’s Test spine, a scrum that was pulled apart in Cape Town and rain forecast for the full 80 minutes. The Sharks arrive without eight Springboks, without a senior fixture since their URC season ended in May, and with a 44-year-old All Black on the bench as Kings Park hosts another warm-up to an historic series ahead.
The top line is that Kings Park has been waiting 34 years for this, and the team that turns up to mark the occasion is somewhere between 70 and 80 per cent of itself. Natal last played New Zealand in 1992, a 43-25 defeat that is still spoken of in Durban as one of the great club-versus-country nights. No side wearing the Sharks name has ever faced the All Blacks and the 1996 tourists, whose series win is being commemorated across this whole eight-match schedule, never came to Durban for a provincial fixture at all. So the ledger reads six matches against Natal, five New Zealand wins and the 6-6 draw of 1960 that remains the province’s high-water mark against them.
JP Pietersen has been honest about the state of his squad, which is the correct call when the alternative is pretending. Bongi Mbonambi, Trevor Nyakane, Jason Jenkins and both Hendrikse brothers are injured. Aphelele Fassi, Ethan Hooker, Eben Etzebeth and André Esterhuizen are with the Springboks. Emile van Heerden pulled out on Monday, and Vincent Tshituka failed a head injury assessment, which cost the Sharks a starting lock and a replacement forward inside 24 hours. What is left is six players from the South Africa A side that beat Zimbabwe 40-0 in June, a 62-cap Test tighthead, a flanker reaching a century for the union, and a senior side whose URC season finished on May 16.
Rennie, meanwhile, has stopped experimenting. Seven of the side that beat the Stormers 38-21 are retained in the 23, but the rest of this team is close to the one that will start at Ellis Park on August 22. Damian McKenzie, Jordie Barrett, Quinn Tupaea, Ruben Love, Tupou Vaa’i, Luke Jacobson, Wallace Sititi, Fletcher Newell and Ethan de Groot were all held back in Cape Town. They are here now, which tells you Rennie did not like what he watched on Friday. He is also comfortable enough with the fixture to hand Bradley Slater and Semisi Ta’eiloa first appearances off the bench.
Where the game will be won
Start at the scrum, because that is where the Stormers found the tour’s first crack and Vincent Koch will have watched every replay with popcorn in hand and domination in mind. New Zealand conceded 16 penalties in Cape Town and took three yellow cards, two of them inside 90 seconds in the 11th and 12th minutes, at one point playing with 13 men. Pasilio Tosi was penalised four times in 47 minutes, and several of those came at scrum time. The reserves did not repair it.
Rennie has responded by starting De Groot and Newell, a considerable upgrade, but Koch has 63 Tests behind him and a specific brief. If the Sharks can win two or three scrum penalties in the opening quarter, they get the only currency available to them tonight, which is territory, and they get referee Matt Carley thinking about a pattern.
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Then look up. The Stormers put Beauden Barrett under a sustained aerial assault through Yaqeen Ahmed and Dewaldt Duvenage and the All Blacks did not deal with it, a point Rennie conceded without much attempt at spin. Now it rains in Durban and Bradley Davids and Vusi Moyo will kick early and often because it’s the quickest route to success for a side this short of running firepower, and McKenzie, Caleb Clarke and a one-cap Fehi Fineanganofo form a back three that is quick and dangerous rather than tall and settled. Wet ball, a young Sharks chase and a New Zealand aerial system that has already been found out once is the single most plausible route to an upset, or at least to a scoreline that stays respectable past the hour. The personnel have changed almost entirely since Friday. The question is whether the structure has.
The third question is conditioning, and it works entirely against the hosts. The Stormers were level at 14-14 until the 66th minute and then lost the game in 10 minutes as three tries went past them. The Sharks are in pre-season and their senior season ended in May. Whatever their intent, the last quarter is where a 44-man touring squad with a bench loaded with fresh international forwards does its work, and Ollie Norris, Tosi and Ethan Blackadder arriving against tiring legs is not a fair fight.
What they said
Pietersen has framed the evening as an occasion rather than a contest, which is both realistic and rather good management. He told his players to “make a memory” they would still be discussing in 30 years, and said facing the haka in Durban would be a wonderful experience for a young group.
On the state of his team, he was blunt: the Sharks will not be at 100 per cent, at best 70 or 80, and they will give it everything they have. He also confirmed the Sharks will pass on whatever they learn to the Springboks, which is the honest admission that this fixture has a purpose beyond itself.
On selecting Ma’a Nonu, brought to Durban last Tuesday to mentor the outside backs and named in the reserves seven days later, Pietersen was unapologetic. “His name says it all,” he said, before pointing out that the man supposedly displaced, Jurenzo Julius, is in fact starting at 13.
Rennie’s tone has been the opposite: less occasion, more repair work. He described Cape Town as an introduction to South African rugby and a proud province, admitted his side gave away too many scrum penalties and never solved the aerial contest, and said flatly that they will be better. On handing Luke Jacobson the captaincy for the first time, he called him the obvious choice, respected in the group and a leader through actions rather than words.
Players to watch
20-year-old Vusi Moyo became the youngest fly-half ever capped by South Africa last month against Wales. Rain, a retreating pack for long stretches and Love opposite him is a considerable evening’s work, and how he handles the kicking duel will decide whether the Sharks have any platform at all.
Meanwhile, Phepsi Buthelezi makes his 100th appearance for the Sharks, at blindside, against the All Blacks, in Durban. There are worse ways to reach a century, and he is the closest thing this pack has to a senior organising voice.
For New Zealand, Wallace Sititi is back in the number eight shirt with a Test place to secure inside 10 days. In a game New Zealand should control, the way he carries in the wet is the sort of evidence Rennie is actually collecting here.
In the backline, Kyle Preston has only had 242 minutes of rugby all season after a full Crusaders campaign spent on the bench. He gets a first start at scrum-half with Cortez Ratima behind him and Cam Roigard rested as a precaution. He is auditioning for the right to be Roigard’s understudy in a four-Test series.
Last but by no means least, Ma’a Nonu. Two World Cups, 103 caps, and a Sharks debut off the bench against his own country at 44. Sentiment aside, he still knows precisely where the space is.
Main head-to-head
This is the contest with genuine consequences beyond tonight. Vincent Koch is the last serious Test forward standing in a depleted Sharks pack, a scrummager with 63 caps who spent years plying his trade in the Premiership and who now gets a direct look at the loosehead Rennie intends to start at Ellis Park. Ethan de Groot was rested in Cape Town precisely so he could be fresh for this, and he arrives knowing that his replacements were comprehensively beaten by a Stormers front-row that was not even at full strength.
Everything the Springboks want to do to New Zealand on August 22 runs through this scrummaging question, and Rassie Erasmus will have a coach on the phone tomorrow morning asking Koch exactly what he felt. If De Groot holds and the New Zealand eight starts marching, the Cape Town evidence looks like a second-string aberration. If Koch gets underneath him and Carley starts reaching for his arm, a four-Test series acquires a theme before it has begun.
And one for the purist, if the timing falls right. Nonu is on the bench at 23 and Jordie Barrett starts at 12. Should the pair share the field for even 10 minutes, Kings Park gets a collision between the man who defined the modern All Blacks midfield and the man who inherited the job. Nonu won his first cap in 2003, when Barrett was six years old, and he arrives at 44 with two World Cup medals and no obvious reason to be doing this beyond wanting to. It will not decide the match. It is the reason a certain sort of supporter will stay in their seat for the last quarter.
Prediction
The Sharks will be excellent for half an hour. Kings Park in the rain, the first Haka before a Durban provincial side since 1992, a pack with nothing to lose and a referee likely to reward the side going forward at scrum time should give them a foothold, and a young backline with Nonu’s fingerprints on its preparation will not be short of belief. Then the bench arrives, the legs go, and the difference between something approaching a Test side and a provincial side in pre-season becomes arithmetic.
New Zealand will be tidier than they were in Cape Town without being anything like the finished article, which is the point of the exercise. The rain keeps the score down and the Sharks get the memory Pietersen asked for.
All Blacks by 19. Sharks 15-34 New Zealand
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The teams
Sharks: 15 Zekhethelo Siyaya, 14 Donovan Don, 13 Jurenzo Julius, 12 Murray Koster, 11 Litelihle Bester, 10 Vusi Moyo, 9 Bradley Davids, 8 Nick Hatton (c), 7 Manu Tshituka, 6 Phepsi Buthelezi, 5 Deon Slabbert, 4 Hendre Stassen, 3 Vincent Koch, 2 Eduan Swart, 1 Nemo Roelofse
Replacements: 16 Liam van Wyk, 17 Rambo Kubekha, 18 Simphiwe Ngobese, 19 Corne Rahl, 20 Matt Romao, 21 Ivan van Zyl, 22 Luan Giliomee, 23 Ma’a Nonu
New Zealand: 15 Damian McKenzie, 14 Fehi Fineanganofo, 13 Quinn Tupaea, 12 Jordie Barrett, 11 Caleb Clarke, 10 Ruben Love, 9 Kyle Preston, 8 Wallace Sititi, 7 Luke Jacobson (c), 6 Tupou Vaa’i, 5 Sam Darry, 4 Josh Lord, 3 Fletcher Newell, 2 Asafo Aumua, 1 Ethan de Groot
Replacements: 16 Bradley Slater, 17 Ollie Norris, 18 Pasilio Tosi, 19 Ethan Blackadder, 20 Semisi Ta’eiloa, 21 Cortez Ratima, 22 Timoci Tavatavanawai, 23 Emoni Narawa
Date: Tuesday, August 11
Venue: Kings Park, Durban
Kick-off: 19:00 (local SAST), 18:00 (UK), 19:00 (France), 03:00 (12 August, AEST), 05:00 (12 August, New Zealand), 14:00 (Argentina), 02:00 (12 August, JST), 13:00 (EDT)
Referee: Matthew Carley (RFU)
Assistant Referees: Karl Dickson (RFU) and Hollie Davidson (SRU)
TMO: Mike Adamson (SRU)
FPRO: Andrew Jackson (RFU)