Cooper’s absence gives Sharks a gap
17 Jul 2012
JON CARDINELLI writes the Reds will miss Quade Cooper’s attacking influence as well as his kicking game when they host the Sharks this Saturday.
Cooper has been suspended for one match following a dangerous tackle on Berrick Barnes, and not for the first time this season Ewen McKenzie will ask a utility player to fill the Reds’ flyhalf void.
A serious knee injury sustained at the 2011 World Cup sidelined Cooper for most of this year’s Super Rugby competition. As a result, the Reds haven’t been as much of a threat on attack, and haven’t been as effective at implementing their kicking game via that imposing Wallabies halfback pairing.
The Reds have looked a better side since Cooper’s return, and scored a bonus-point win over the Waratahs last Saturday to claim the Australian conference title. However, it is Cooper’s transgression and subsequent suspension that could prevent the Reds from advancing any further in this tournament, as they don’t have another player in the same class.
Former Wallabies centre Tim Horan said as much following Cooper’s dangerous tackle. Predictably, McKenzie has responded by pointing to the Reds’ earlier performances when Cooper was still on the sideline. McKenzie cited wins that were achieved without Cooper, and believes that the Reds will cope with the most recent setback and progress to the semi-finals.
McKenzie has also said that the Reds ‘owe the Sharks one’, referring to the Sharks’ win against the Reds in the league phase. It was in this match where the Reds’ flyhalf problem quickly became a nightmare, as further injuries to flyhalves resulted in Will Genia finishing the game at pivot.
Genia will miss having Cooper on his inside this Saturday. The Wallabies halfback pair was integral to the Reds’ success in the 2011 Super Rugby competition as well as the Wallabies’ Tri-Nations victory. Both are outstanding individual players, but that halfback combination is more than the sum of its parts.
Every opponent of the Reds has been on a ‘Get Genia’ campaign this season, and attempts to disrupt the Reds at source is no new tactic. The Sharks will surely aim to bully the Reds up front and deny Genia a platform from which to play, but they should also work to further negate his space.
The fact that Cooper is not on Genia’s outside means there should be more pressure on the scrumhalf to play the role of general, as well as provide the attacking impetus. It’s a lot of responsibility, and the Sharks would do well to use this pressure to their advantage.
The Sharks will be without three key players of their own, as Pat Lambie (ankle injury), Pieter-Steph du Toit (ankle injury) and Frans Steyn (ineligible) will not be available.
However, it is more significant that their heavy hitting Springboks should be back in the starting line-up. The inclusion of Willem Alberts and Bismarck du Plessis will aid the Sharks’ quest for gainline supremacy, as well as the aim to stifle Genia’s influence.
Steyn has made a massive impact since joining the Sharks, and the Durban-side will miss his physical influence as well as his prodigious boot. Coach John Plumtree has the option of moving Tim Whitehead to No 12 and bringing Paul Jordaan in at No 13, but a like-for-like replacement would be more prudent. Meyer Bosman is an imposing physical specimen and has the type of kicking game that is so often the difference in tight play-off matches.
It’s a big ask to travel across the world and win a play-off, and I’m not suggesting that the Sharks will have it easy in Brisbane. But there’s little doubt that the absence of Cooper will effect the Reds’ balance and increase the chances of a Sharks upset.
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827 Comments
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17 Jul 2012, 15:18 pm
What is a halfblack?….and what’s it got to do with this idea that God has given Rockspiders and only them the strength to defeat teams.You don’t see other people getting carried away with that Bullshite.The weird fokkers probably crucified God for their two defeats against the Stormers.
17 Jul 2012, 15:20 pm
Sorry if anyone else has said this but….
If Nikita is moderating, what has she done to Roy?
(In the drawing room, with the brass candlestick) !!
17 Jul 2012, 15:20 pm
Dawn
176.Gumboots said:
17 Jul 2012, 11:01 am
Aha I see everyone spreading the love!!!
Listen I like the good banter and the clever use of words – it makes me larf lekker. What I don’t like is the crude use of language and the way some people speak to ladies. A certain bloggers permanent reference to s ex upsets me and I’m sure many others too.
I have said things I regret and like UFO said you react without really thinking…
Now I’m spreading the love until ….
17 Jul 2012, 15:21 pm
This classic whoops from Dawn….
‘Kings vital to transformation’
23 May 2012
342.Dawn:
23 May 2012, 18:11 pm
Course I’m a racist
What’s wrong with that you great white.
17 Jul 2012, 15:22 pm
@The Sharks rugby pedigree is packaged by Mad Eye Productions.(The Sharks rugby pedigree is packaged as dog food)-498:
yeah… got it after i hit the submit button for my first response…
see@490
17 Jul 2012, 15:24 pm
@Sharks fans are genuine Bok supporters(Predawn)-496: I have no problem with public meltdowns. Your buds was one of the best I have witnessed in ages. Anger, hate, tears, snot, insults and accusations all rounded off with the customary falling down into the submissive missionary position, and playing the victim.
It was special.
17 Jul 2012, 15:24 pm
In closing ,you don’t see the boneheads thanking God when the lost a game.God is only useful to them when they are winning.That’s my last word on religion.
17 Jul 2012, 15:24 pm
strange that the k@k always “spat” if dawn is here, then she starts mailing the moderator etc ….. suur pruim prawn! .. the thing is, this is a rugby blog vir die manne … she must go blog on 7de laan’s website! bye prawn
17 Jul 2012, 15:25 pm
@Transformation(Transformation)-433: Swedish… but never mind you pretty much got the gist of it.
@>^..^< katman(katman)-465: if I had to abide by your jaundiced judgment or the keo poll of goody two shoes fake delusions of grandeur as the measure of your warped state of what comprises sanity.. then you little runt fakefck may as well go ahead and call the cuckoos nest wardens right now..
Socrates was poisoned for being classified insane by the high society standard bearers of his time.. you are the EPITOME of absolute highfalutin delusion of grandeur .. its outright fakefck’s like you who need the first lesson of where reality or sanity or phony begins or ends.. you pitiful little snotty nosed nobody who thinks he’s somebody clever and relevant in this fake delusional grandiose arselick society right here.
17 Jul 2012, 15:25 pm
@Nils(Nils)-500: Ha ha. Beautiful.
17 Jul 2012, 15:26 pm
@The Sharks rugby pedigree is packaged by Mad Eye Productions.(The Sharks rugby pedigree is packaged as dog food)-506:
Your mate skopshyte is the filthiest of filthy farkers. It has no equal.
17 Jul 2012, 15:26 pm
@ufo(ufo)-505:
17 Jul 2012, 15:27 pm
@Sharks fans are genuine Bok supporters(Predawn)-511: I don’t know Skopshyte, but I am quite literally laughing myself into a seizure here at some of the sh y te going down in his posts.
17 Jul 2012, 15:28 pm
I had a great Birthday Card on Sunday it reads -
“Dogs and cats are better than kids because they eat less, dont ask for money……and if they get pregnant you can sell their children” !!
Well I thought it was funny ……….. !!
Just sharing the love.
17 Jul 2012, 15:29 pm
@stormerforlife1(stormerforlife1)-507: i believe they call Him “Liewe Hiesus”
17 Jul 2012, 15:29 pm
@carol(carol)-502:
Middag!!!
17 Jul 2012, 15:29 pm
@carol(carol)-514:
Did you go to the game on Saturday?
17 Jul 2012, 15:31 pm
@carol(carol)-514:
Happy Happy to you then…
17 Jul 2012, 15:31 pm
@fitz1ella(fitz1ella)-509:
Will it kill your cred if I say when I met you I found you to be polite and as “normal” as the rest of us!!
17 Jul 2012, 15:31 pm
@grant10(grant100)-508: Epic fail. (Background music supplied by Two steps from hell – Heart of Courage)
You enter stage left.
You mutter something irrelevant and twattish.
You realise how stupid you sound.
You fall on your own sword.
Music ends.
Epic indeed.
17 Jul 2012, 15:32 pm
@Gumboots(Gumboots)-516:
Sorry, what does ‘Middag’ mean?
Oh and thanks…!
17 Jul 2012, 15:32 pm
@grant10(grant100)-508:
Was I here when he started spewing that bile?
Go read the thread. If you can read.
17 Jul 2012, 15:33 pm
@the artist formerly known as gunther(gunther)-467: I’m in the Top 10% then. There’s no shame in being Afrikaans speaking, but there is in being an Afrikaner.
17 Jul 2012, 15:34 pm
@carol(carol)-521:
Good Afternoon in Meyer language…
17 Jul 2012, 15:35 pm
@Sharks fans are genuine Bok supporters(Predawn)-445: how many you have or had premenstrual at dawn?
@>^..^< katman(katman)-499: nope fakefck… not today… you obviously more ‘entitled’ to pronounce your extremely diligent assessment of what represents real experience from phony .. you little pisswilly prick who knows absolutely FCKALL..!!!
17 Jul 2012, 15:35 pm
Yeah,Sharkslover’s meltdown couldn’t have been better scripted by a film producer.He is a film producer/director’s dream.He probably stripped the varnish of those tables this morning cleaning it.Anger management institutions would refuse him entry onto their courses.Too unstable that chap.
17 Jul 2012, 15:35 pm
Gooooooo Stormers!
Oh yes, go Sharks and Bulls too.
But mostly Gooooooo Stormers!
17 Jul 2012, 15:36 pm
@fitz1ella(fitz1ella)-509: Hang on, so you and Socrates have this shared experience? Misunderstood, unappreciated, victimised and ultimately sacrificed because of our stupid ignorance? You and Socrates?
Have I ever mentioned that you are completely and utterly fcked in your little head? Beyond repair, like a 1978 Blaupunkt TV lying in a landfill, with weeds growing through it and home to a small family of field mice.
17 Jul 2012, 15:36 pm
@Sharks fans are genuine Bok supporters(Predawn)-517:
I was in Sicily on Saturday, in that heat no one even ‘thinks’about sport!
However, I did witness some canoe water polo!
17 Jul 2012, 15:36 pm
@stormersboy(stormersboy)-527:
17 Jul 2012, 15:36 pm
@TooMuchRugby(TooMuchRugby)-523: Sorry, that came out wrong. With Afrikaner I meant “white supremacist” There is some decent Afrikaners out there.
17 Jul 2012, 15:38 pm
@Gumboots(Gumboots)-524:
Of course, WHOOPS…
I was wondering if you too had wondered what had happened to Roy our original and very tolerant moderator?
17 Jul 2012, 15:39 pm
@carol(carol)-529:
Oookay. Just wondered if you witnessed a huge fight at Red Corner. No worries.
17 Jul 2012, 15:39 pm
@carol(carol)-502: With a brass candlestick? Will Roy walk normally again?
17 Jul 2012, 15:40 pm
@carol(carol)-532:
IG was the one and only original moderator…
17 Jul 2012, 15:41 pm
@ufo(ufo)-535:
…and as pinky liberal as they come.
17 Jul 2012, 15:41 pm
@stormersboy(stormersboy)-527:
hehehe…
17 Jul 2012, 15:42 pm
@carol(carol)-519: afternoon m’am Guinevere of the wolds… try sell it to the outright fakes here… who presume they hold the patent on what represents infallible sanity..
actually I far prefer they assume they are the real deal’s of the world.. that way I can be safe from inclusion in the pitiful backslapping fakefck camaraderie that gets espoused as ‘normal’ in this pseudo fake delusional gratuitous avenue of two faced grandeur.
see ya.. .. out
17 Jul 2012, 15:42 pm
@stormerforlife1(stormerforlife1)-501:
Somebody who is also half white.
————————————————–
Just hope that the Sharks did not forget to take along their flight socks. It’ll ensure good bloodflow through the veins on the long flight. They can’t afford to lose another player after losing Lambie, du Toit and Steyn already.
17 Jul 2012, 15:42 pm
@ufo(ufo)-535:
Sigh.
17 Jul 2012, 15:42 pm
@Sharks fans are genuine Bok supporters(Predawn)-533:
Living in the Cotswolds means I sadly rarely make it to Newland, Loftus or the Shark Tank.
However when I do, it is party time and time to meet up with Keolings!
17 Jul 2012, 15:42 pm
IG had more class in his pinky than others yes…
17 Jul 2012, 15:43 pm
@ufo(ufo)-451:
do you ‘rock’ a budgie smuggler when your on the seapoint promenade?
17 Jul 2012, 15:43 pm
@carol(carol)-532:
Very tolerant indeed. I would have whoopassed them all by now…
17 Jul 2012, 15:43 pm
@TooMuchRugby(TooMuchRugby)-531:
Did it come out wrong diddums?
You are so thick it hurts.
We all know exactly what you meant.
17 Jul 2012, 15:43 pm
Did someone mention Ig
There goes my afternoon.
17 Jul 2012, 15:43 pm
Wattefokgaanhieraan?
17 Jul 2012, 15:43 pm
@fitz1ella(fitz1ella)-509: @fitz1ella(fitz1ella)-525: yeah, i knew it was one of them viking women you said you were poking stukkend…swiss/swedish up there in the alps sowing your wild skopskiet oats.
17 Jul 2012, 15:44 pm
@>^..^< katman(katman)-534:
She looks a forceful woman, who knows!!
Perhaps it was the sidekick Lucy ‘wot did im in’!!
17 Jul 2012, 15:44 pm
@ufo(ufo)-542:
Did someone mention Ig’s pinky.
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