Hurricanes vs Sharks review:

This game did not deliver what I expected but it was not because of the player not playing good rugby. The Sharks was very unfortunate with the injury of Thomas du Toit just before the game and that continued losing Mapimpi and Chamberlain early in the first half. The Canes continued with their of the ball niggles on a South-African team and that was not seen by the ref or his team.

Hurricanes:

The Canes found a way around the Sharks defense and started moving the ball from their first receiver directly to the wing where they exploited the space and were able to cause problems to the Sharks. They were also able to establish dominance at the set piece which gave them a great platform to launch their dangerous runners from. The one thing that I believe will bite the canes in the backside is TJ Perenara. He might be a great player and an influential captain but I believe that as soon as they get a referee that doesn’t like the 9 shouting at him all the time they will be on the wrong side of the ref which means all 50/50 calls will go against them. He does know the rules well, but it will still rub most referees with a backbone up the wrong way.

Sharks:

The Sharks game into this game on the team sheets as favorites but when they lost the tank and started Ox on the bench their forward pack weekend a lot especially at scrum time. Their defensive line that shoots up worked well when they had all their backline players playing in their best position. When they lost Mapimpi and Chamberlain they replaced a wing with a center and a flyhalf with a halfback. That confused the entire backline and their defense was not able to adjust. At the beginning of the game Chamberlain and Fassi were exceptional making something from nothing and running great lines to break open the defense. Later on in the game it was clear that the backline started tiring and was not able to defend the fresh players of the canes. Then when they started falling behind they tried to many offloads and it caused them to throw the ball away in good areas.

MVP:

Aphelele Fassi: I know he was on the losing team but he was one of the stand out players on that team. He is the leading fullback in South-Africa this year and to be honest I never liked the guy but if he keeps preforming like he did I will have no choice but to put him in my fantasy lineup.