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, 17:18 pm
@willievz(willievz)-643: dagse Willie, gann dit goed??
los daai ou boet, hy is net hier om te sien of hy sharks ondersteuners kan kwaad maak met sy vertraagde aanmerkens van Sharks spelers, Bosman is n goeie 10
17 Jul 2012, 17:19 pm
@sharks_lover(sharks_lover)-645: Maybe… but that could be too eloquent… Maybe Msunumamawakhe will do too… The little thuvi
@sharks_lover(sharks_lover)-646: Cheers. Wont be long either… It seems I have cleared the floor of the righteous… the wrong… and the just plain stupid…
t’was fun though
17 Jul 2012, 17:20 pm
@stormerforlife1(stormerforlife1)-638: It pains me to say I agree with you 100%. Maybe you are actually a quality man…even for a stormers supporter….
17 Jul 2012, 17:20 pm
@Skeppie(Skeppie)-650: i understand skeppie, just also telling you what was said to me by someone close to him, I aint his biggest fan either, and i know he is an arrogant bloke, or so it seems, but it dont mean the truth should not be said either
17 Jul 2012, 17:24 pm
Sharkslover is one nutcase to say the least.Now he has an imaginary Indian friend to support his buddy’s grant10′s theory.The funny thing is ,just because one Indian friend said it,it suddenly becomes fact in sharkslover’s disjointed mind.
17 Jul 2012, 17:26 pm
@Transformation(Transformation)-636: Alberts worst defender? I hope you haven’t picked that up off stats…..he may have slipped a few but how many has he made? And how many of those were momentum stopping hits?
17 Jul 2012, 17:27 pm
@Heavens Game(Heavens Game)-647:
later HG, gym calls.
17 Jul 2012, 17:28 pm
@Skeppie(Skeppie)-656: look alberts could’ve been protecting his “injured” shoulder, even mallett mentioned it before the pom series. he was missing tackles.
17 Jul 2012, 17:29 pm
@sharks_lover(sharks_lover)-654: Fair enough, it’s not like I am fully in the loop here so maybe the facts where slightly different from the way I understnd ir. I do know though that when he cam eback to Durban from his first stint in county cricket, he reneted a plain white car and had his own “Middlesex drives KP” (Whatever the county was) magnetic sign made and drove around with it on hos rental car…..that is a fact. He is a tosser of note
17 Jul 2012, 17:30 pm
@Transformation(Transformation)-658: Could be, all I know is that he is one of the most effective defenders we have in SA.
17 Jul 2012, 17:31 pm
@sharks_lover(sharks_lover)-651: you only get upset when you’re in denial sharky, meyer bosman @ centre for the sharks has been a disaster! you know it
17 Jul 2012, 17:32 pm
Be careful now.Iv’e got an image to protect.I am not oblivious to the fact that quotas ruined many a cricker on both sides of the spectrum.Percy Sonn’s selection interference when he pushed Ontong before his time still rankles with me .It messed up the young man for a quite a long time.
17 Jul 2012, 17:37 pm
I’ve and cricketer before teacher Gunther raps me on the knuckles again.
17 Jul 2012, 17:42 pm
@stormerforlife1(stormerforlife1)-662: Guys in the late 90′s and early 2000′s can possibly moan about quota’s both black and white players. Some whiteys were blatantly left out for less deserving players and some black players were rushed in as pawns and ultimatley paid the same price….the system messed all around equally.
17 Jul 2012, 17:47 pm
Transie is correct skeppie.At one stage super stats showed that Alberts was the reincarnation of turnstile Bosman
17 Jul 2012, 17:59 pm
@Skeppie(Skeppie)-659:
He’s a twat.
He was an average cricketer when he was in SA and he is getting his comeuppance now.
Trott was also mostly a club cricketer here.
Credit to both of them for doing do well overseas but to suggest they left as a result of quotas is ludicrous. Worthy of being put in Keo’s remedial group along with Toomuchofrugby and Stormerforawife.
17 Jul 2012, 18:05 pm
@willievz(willievz)-599:
Willie, I will send you a list to be going on with!!
17 Jul 2012, 18:09 pm
@stormerforlife1(stormerforlife1)-662:
Ahhh Percy.
Who can forget him rocking with his c.ock out at the 2003 World Cup.
Or his vile drunken abuse of Martin Locke in the Long Room at Newlands.
You could be related.
17 Jul 2012, 18:14 pm
@Transformation(Transformation)-658: Ja-nee, this oke can’t tackle for tofee, hey. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=brcvS87dUnI
17 Jul 2012, 18:15 pm
toffee, before someone spots my typo.
17 Jul 2012, 18:17 pm
SL has imaginary Indian friend who tells him things
17 Jul 2012, 18:23 pm
Yeah,Trott was mostly a very dour club level cricketer.His half-brother Kenny Jackson was more exciting to watch.Mind you,Trott is still dour but a very good test player now.
17 Jul 2012, 18:24 pm
Trott reminds me of Robbie Armitage.Always wanted to bat until the cows come home.
17 Jul 2012, 18:32 pm
…
17 Jul 2012, 18:33 pm
@Dawn(Dawn)-671: searching for attention again lowlife??
17 Jul 2012, 18:33 pm
@>^..^< katman(katman)-669: too late lol
17 Jul 2012, 18:41 pm
Why is there so much anger here today?
17 Jul 2012, 18:46 pm
that clip of Alberts vs Bulls has more barnstorming head down vokmavoort runs into Bulls midfield than tackles, Alberts is a far better ball carrier than a tackler.
In fact Alberts and Bismark are the two chief proponents of any Sharks potential to progress as was painfully obvious when Plumtree started vs Cheetahs without them Sharks were getting hammered left right and center…
And PdV decided not to start either of them in his campaign for the 2011 WC.. he thought captain fatfck Barney was a better option at 2 and Pierretjie Spiesertjie at 8 with Schalk Burger at 7 was the way to go…pity he had to lose to find out how wrong he was… as so many other rugby fundi’s here and elsewhere were still baffled by the Smit halo conundrum..
17 Jul 2012, 18:50 pm
@Sheriff(Sheriff)-677: its because there are a whole bevvy of fakefcks who reckon they occupy the echelons of sanity on keo…
two face little nincompoop fanny faced arsecreeps who are bewildered by their own infatuated self engrossed arrogance beyond compare.
17 Jul 2012, 18:56 pm
Yes I’m a lowlife.
Happy now?
17 Jul 2012, 18:58 pm
@the artist formerly known as gunther(gunther)-666: Agreed
17 Jul 2012, 19:00 pm
@the artist formerly known as gunther(gunther)-666:
Guther 666 has a nice ring to it
17 Jul 2012, 19:03 pm
@fitz1ella(fitz1ella)-678:
Alberts did play in the WC
17 Jul 2012, 19:10 pm
@fitz1ella(fitz1ella)-679: Piss off you phony prick. Why should everyone have to put up with your attention seeking lunatic rants all evening long? Why are you so “me me me” all the time? Why do you always post repetitive garbage that even you don’t comprehend? What went wrong with you?
17 Jul 2012, 19:13 pm
@victoriabok(victoriabok)-683: Off the bench as a bit part player.. just like Bismark and Hougaard..which is what cost us the quarter final and the entire campaign.
Starting Smit, Spies and FdP cost us the WC.. it almost cost us the opening game vs Wales until the atter 3 came on and turned the tide around IMMEDIATELY.. just like what happened with Sharks this weekend vs Cheetahs.. without Bismark and Alberts Sharks are half a team.. same with Boks..
Smit should NEVER have started ahead of Bismark.. and Alberts should have ALWAYS started at either 7 or 8..
Between Smit, Spies, Burger and FdP.. Boks lost the 2011 WC..
17 Jul 2012, 19:15 pm
Tyrone typing between his toilet and table cleaning duties?Be careful of cross-contamination Tyrone!
17 Jul 2012, 19:16 pm
@>^..^< katman(katman)-684: you get fucked you little runt.. who the fck you little pisswilly punk think you are.. the arbitrator of realism..?? you pathetic little fucknut need the hiding to your fat arrogance you little fakefckcn’t absolutely deserve… without a f’ng doubt..
piece of over aggrandized little fakefck fcknut supreme…
17 Jul 2012, 19:18 pm
@fitz1ella(fitz1ella)-687: Stop barfing up the same old expletives and start answering my questions. You’ll count four in my previous post. I’m waiting.
17 Jul 2012, 19:19 pm
@stormerforlife1(stormerforlife1)-686:
Who’s Tyrone?
17 Jul 2012, 19:21 pm
Why so aggressive Katman?No need for such disgusting language.You are totally out of order and seemingly a law unto yourself.Chillax or excuse yourself from this blog as soon as possible.Thank you.
17 Jul 2012, 19:25 pm
@stormerforlife1(stormerforlife1)-690: You got no say here, capo. Besides, compare the tone of my posts with Herr Skoppie and tell me who’s the aggressive one. He’s a rotten old sack of sht, and I’ll tell him so every day. If you don’t like that, I suggest you get lost too.
17 Jul 2012, 19:26 pm
@Skeppie(Skeppie)-659:
You were right and SL wrong.
KP was an average spinner who could bat a bit in the lower order.
Bhodi was an average OPENER who could bowl some spin.
Sharks, at that time, was in need of an opener.
Who to choose???
Quotas had nothing to do with it.
17 Jul 2012, 19:26 pm
Have to go and watch Mawsterchef but will be back later for full resolution and signing of peace accord
17 Jul 2012, 19:27 pm
@>^..^< katman(katman)-688: I told you to get fucked punk… I don’t answer to your fatfck interrogation you little fakefck runt…
go realfck with wifey and look after your little kiddywinkies because over here your fatfck arrogance is gonna get the smack to your over aggrandized arrogance it so richly deserves.. pisswilly little punk…!!
@stormerforlife1(stormerforlife1)-690: this my fight not yours .. butt out of it.. I’m the one using the bad language not Katman and I do it for the purpose bad language originated.. to tell fakefcks precisely who the faker they are..
17 Jul 2012, 19:30 pm
@>^..^< katman(katman)-691: he’s got as much say here as fakefcks like you.. who the fck you little over aggrandized piece of highfalutin fakefck trash think you are.. you a fakefck nobody.. just as fake as anyone else you little snot nosed piece of fakefck over aggrandized schmuckfaced trash….
17 Jul 2012, 19:31 pm
@fitz1ella(fitz1ella)-694: Easy fella. One more post like that and you might require CPR. I suggest you throw in the towel while you can.
17 Jul 2012, 19:33 pm
@>^..^< katman(katman)-696:
And he might wear out the “F” button on the Nokia as well
17 Jul 2012, 19:36 pm
@nama1(nama1)-692:
Bod? always bowled ch?naman and only started batt?ng h?gher up the order later ?n h?s career. It was between h?m and KP for the sp?nners spot ?n the Dolph?ns team and ?t went to Bod?.
17 Jul 2012, 19:37 pm
I give up.Too much aggro on here today.Let’s all take hands,pray and support our saffa boys on Saturday.
17 Jul 2012, 19:42 pm
@Jeraldjay(Jeraldjay)-698:
WTF
? = ?
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