The Cell C Sharks have one final opportunity to determine their log position when they host Munster at Hollywoodbets Kings Park in a last round Vodacom United Rugby Championship clash this evening.
Going into this final weekend of Vodacom United Rugby Championship action before the knock-out rounds commence, the permutations are almost endless as to which team finishes where on the overall log, determining whether or not they have a home game or even get to play in the quarter-finals.
“This is something we have discussed,” explains Cell C Sharks Director of Rugby Neil Powell. “If we don’t do ourselves a favour, if we aren’t successful over Munster, then none of those permutations really matter.
“We have to do our job first before we look at anyone else and hoping they do us a favour. Our discussion this week were all about us and beating Munster here, because if we lose then nothing else matters.”
Munster will come to Hollywoodbets Kings Park aware of the 50 points the Cell C Sharks put on them three weeks ago, but fresh off their victory over last year’s champions the DHL Stormers in Cape Town and the fight for a top four finish will motivate them to be a lot better this time around.
“We expect a different Munster team,” Powell admits. “You could see the intent with which they played in the Stormers’ game, beating them there is no easy feat. They’ve definitely stepped up in the areas where we challenged them and beat them here in Durban.
“We expect a team that will be a lot more physical, who want more dominance from their forward pack and we are happy with our preparations, for what we expect them to bring.”
The breakdown was one area where Munster came off second best in that 50-35 defeat, but they seem to have fixed the issues that plagued them and this will be a keenly-contested area of the game.
“We were a little bit more dominant in that area, but they have fixed that, they did well against the Stormers and didn’t concede much there, even putting the Stormers under pressure at the breakdown. So we are well aware of what we think they will bring to this game and for us it’s a case of making sure that we are still dominant in that area when we play.”
Having travelled internationally the previous week for the Heineken Champions Cup quarter-final match in France, playing on a Saturday and then hosting Benetton on a Friday night, necessitating a brief turnaround period, this was not ideal for the Cell C Sharks.
“Last week, being such a short week after arriving back from overseas and a tough game against Toulouse, we’ve seen how much higher the energy levels were in the training sessions this week.
“It’s vastly different from last weekend, you could see at Thursday’s captain’s run before the Benetton game, the guys were a bit flat and low on energy.
“It’s good that we’ve had two weeks at home, you can see the energy. We want to start a lot better than how we did against Benetton and that’s going to be crucial in this game.”