News

Michalak and co. up and running

Tuesday 08th July 2008

On the comeback trail: Fr�d�ric Michalak

The Sharks welcomed four key players back to training on Tuesday, including French import Fr�d�ric Michalak, after two difficult weeks in the Currie Cup hampered by a spate of injuries.

The Durban side will be keen to bounce back after being toppled from the summit of the Currie Cup table by the Blue Bulls last Saturday, when they went down 35-14 at Loftus Versfeld.

The return to training of Michalak, Brad Barritt, Rory Kockott and Steven Sykes should go a long way to bolstering the team's morale, and possibly their firepower, ahead of their clash against the Falcons this Friday.

Coach John Plumtree confirmed on the Sharks website that while all four will be at training on Tuesday, none are sure starters for this weekend's game, though Barritt is likely to be fit having only been withdrawn from last Saturday's game the day before.

Michalak is still a few weeks off a start and as is flank Jean Deysel , having fractured bones in his hand in the pre-season compulsory friendly against the Griffons.

Plumtree also gave an injury update following the Blue Bulls match.

"Deon Carstens took a little bit of a calf muscle injury and Nic Strauss is OK but has a little bit of a knee injury which will be assessed and he'll undergo rehab [on Tuesday]" explained Plumtree.

Looking back to the Blue Bulls match, the coach admitted that their preparation had not been perfect but that there were positives to be drawn from the loss.

"I think we got a couple of things wrong in our preparation and that cost us," said the coach.

"We missed some important one-on-one tackles which let us down and that was disappointing because we knew that if they gained momentum through their big runners, they would stress us out wide.

"We have a little bit of inexperience in the backs, and as they play, they will improve, but yes, it was a bit disappointing."

"A positive sign is that we played some of our best rugby of the year, I thought some of the rugby we put together was better than some of the stuff we did in the Super 14, so that was encouraging for us.

"There is a lot of stuff we are working on that's actually coming through. The scoreboard doesn't reflect this, but we saw some really positive rugby. There is a lot of stuff in terms of strategy that we are trying to put in place to get better."

Losing Bradley Barritt late in the week was a real blow and Plumtree admitted that Monty Dumond deserves praise for his effort.

"It was hard for Monty, he had no preparation time whatsoever," he explained.

He also attributed the mistakes made by the Sharks to good pressure applied by the Bulls.

"If the side is good enough to put you under pressure you're going to make errors," added Plumtree.

"The game of rugby at this level is about pressure - how much good pressure you put on them to force them to err, how much they do to us.

"We're dealing with a Bulls side that is bloody experienced, there wasn't a single guy there that isn't a household name in Pretoria, and probably South Africa. We knew what we were up against, it was really tough."

In mitigation, he admitted that injuries and pressure are excuses, "but they're valid ones, so I think everyone needs to show a little bit of patience with this team. we've had three games and two wins, we're looking forward to another Friday night game [at The Absa Stadium Durban] and we're all positive here."