Durban - The Sharks team to take on the Stormers at Kings Park in Saturday’s Super Rugby clash shows great continuity - which is every coach’s dream as they look to build continuity.

According to Sharks website editor Michael Marnewick, the first thing coach John Plumtree said after Saturday’s defeat of the Cheetahs was how thrilled he was that there were no injuries to come out of the game and this has featured in his naming of an almost unchanged line-up for this weekend’s match.

In just one change, Jean Deysel and Jacques Botes swap with the former starting this week after playing off the bench against the Cheetahs.

Despite being the start of the season and having suffered two injuries in the pre-season warm-up games, and against tough opposition like the Cheetahs on their dry, rock hard ground, The Sharks came out relatively unscathed which was a major relief.

“We had a couple of head knocks, and the ground was pretty hard there,” explained Plumtree.

“Meyer Bosman is over his, Jean Deysel took quite a nasty knock but he is ok. Lwazi Mvovo had to come off, he had a problem with his groin, but he is OK for this week.”

The Sharks lineout was believed to be potentially problematic, but it functioned very well against the Cheetahs, operating at 92%. The Cheetahs by contrast were successful with only 67% of their throws which indicates that the Stormers may not have an edge they might have hoped to exploit.

Nevertheless, Plumtree felt that there were problem areas which they needed to button up for the match on Saturday. 

“We were a bit clumsy at the breakdown, we would secure the ball comfortably and then it would pop out the side and we’d ask: ‘how did that happen?’ A couple of times we were short of numbers and got turned over, a couple of times poor carrying into contact.

“The Stormers hit you hard, so you need to make sure you maintain possession when they do. We’ve worked on that in training, it’s a big focus, you need to keep the ball.”

Teams:

Sharks:

15. Louis Ludik, 14. JP Pietersen, 13. Paul Jordaan, 12. Francois Steyn (captain), 11. Lwazi Mvovo, 10. Patrick Lambie, 9. Cobus Reinach, 8. Ryan Kankowski, 7. Jean Deysel, 6. Marcell Coetzee, 5. Franco van der Merwe, 4. Anton Bresler, 3. Jannie du Plessis, 2. Craig Burden, 1. Tendai Mtawarira

Substitutes: 16. Kyle Cooper, 17. Wiehahn Herbst, 18. Pieter-Steph du Toit, 19. Jacques Botes, 20. Charl McLeod, 21. Meyer Bosman, 22. Odwa Ndungane

Stormers:

15. Joe Pietersen, 14. Gio Aplon, 13. Jean de Villiers (captain), 12. Damian de Allende, 11. Bryan Habana, 10. Elton Jantjies, 9. Nic Groom, 8. Duane Vermeulen (vice-captain), 7. Rynhardt Elstadt, 6. Siya Kolisi, 5. Andries Bekker, 4. De Kock Steenkamp, 3. Frans Malherbe, 2. Deon Fourie, 1. Steven Kitshoff

Substitutes: 16. Martin Bezuidenhout, 17. Pat Cilliers, 18. Don Armand, 19. Nizaam Carr, 20. Louis Schreuder, 21. Peter Grant, 22. Gerhard van den Heever