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, 12:42 pm
@Gumboots(Gumboots)-247: gummy behave lol
17 Jul 2012, 12:42 pm
@rossoneri(rossoneri)-227: Very good assessment.
17 Jul 2012, 12:43 pm
@Hurricane(Hurricane)-244: Morning Hurricane, tell me are the Kiwi rugby websites as full of crazies as this one?
17 Jul 2012, 12:44 pm
@sharks_lover(sharks_lover)-251:
Probably the best behaved blogger – not…
17 Jul 2012, 12:45 pm
@sharks_lover(sharks_lover)-248: Oh f * ck it’s ‘Interweb Braveheart’.
“Fellow Sharks supporters – and all other good folk…”
(All sharks fanboys are GOOD?)
17 Jul 2012, 12:46 pm
now for an advert break…
for anyone following the us election… was sent this…
Mitt Romney: I owned Bain but had nothing to do with its business practices. President Obama, however is responsible for the Bush recession.
17 Jul 2012, 12:46 pm
@Sharks fans are genuine Bok supporters(Predawn)-242: I know, internet machismo is very confusing
17 Jul 2012, 12:46 pm
@Skeppie(Skeppie)-253:
Yes.
They had to minimize the articles on which users could comment on Rugbyheaven NZ
17 Jul 2012, 12:47 pm
@sharks_lover(sharks_lover)-248: you a good folk sharkie.. are you 100% certain of that or its just something you would like to consider yourself as?
17 Jul 2012, 12:47 pm
@The Sharks rugby pedigree is packaged by Mad Eye Productions.(The Sharks rugby pedigree is packaged as dog food)-255:
We are gathered here today!!!
Why do you always push buttons? Oh you typing!!!
17 Jul 2012, 12:47 pm
@Gumboots(Gumboots)-254: lol,
17 Jul 2012, 12:48 pm
@Skeppie(Skeppie)-253:
Evening Skeppie.
Tell you the truth, i have never been on a kiwi rugby blog.
I use to blog on an Ozzie blog where they had a few X Ozzie players blogging.
I had a good ole battle with those guys.
But moved onto Keo about 6 years ago and never looked back. I mean come on, where do
you get this many crazies mingling……. Woodstock not counted
17 Jul 2012, 12:49 pm
@wpstormerbok(wpstormerbok)-258:
The Roar (Aus) is one of the better rugby blogs around with actual moderaters doing their job.
17 Jul 2012, 12:49 pm
@wpstormerbok(wpstormerbok)-258: I am not surprised…..oh well I suppose it’s good for the game in one respect to have all this passion/madness flying around.
17 Jul 2012, 12:49 pm
@fitz1ella(fitz1ella)-250:
Must I stare hard at the screen? Pull tongues at you?
17 Jul 2012, 12:50 pm
@Hurricane(Hurricane)-262: HAHAHA Can’t argue there, this place is chockers with nutters (but most of them are stormers supporters so to be understood….now where’s that smiley face button?)
17 Jul 2012, 12:50 pm
@Hurricane(Hurricane)-262:
I wouldn’t look back either mate! Just run like Forest did…
17 Jul 2012, 12:50 pm
Capo now pretending not to be Capo?
Never mind.
Never mind 9 out of 10 Poodles would still spot him in a Police lineup.
17 Jul 2012, 12:51 pm
@ufo(ufo)-256: Ufo no matter who says what of either team, come saturday its gonna be about the hunger and want by the team that wants it most, i know the Sharks are not the favourites no matter what anyone says, as we know for years the problem of flying back in time takes it out of us Saffas,that already gives the Reds the edge, does the Sharks have the ability to win?? Yes
For me its about the mental preperation of the team, and IF and only If the Sharks can lift to the standard they played against the Bulls?? can they win
17 Jul 2012, 12:51 pm
@Hurricane(Hurricane)-262:
17 Jul 2012, 12:51 pm
@Atreides(Atreides)-257:
So much better to use wit than project anger.
17 Jul 2012, 12:52 pm
@Gumboots(Gumboots)-267:
Now i would have forest on my team
17 Jul 2012, 12:52 pm
Even without Quade the Reds will be very hard to beat! Genia and Ioane have X-factor and Genia is probably the best 9 in the world now… Sharks need to keep the ball away from them and then use thr Forwards to batter away… Lets hope they win…
17 Jul 2012, 12:52 pm
Mitch to step into the Den
According to the friendly folks at Beeld, suspended Lions coach John Mitchell will finally get his day in court, with his disciplinary hearing scheduled to start this morning.
Mitchell was temporarily relieved of his duties as head coach just under a month ago, following dark mutterings of a player revolt. Union president Kevin de Klerk later came forward to reveal that player unhappiness was only one of the concerns behind the Lions’ decision to suspend their coach, with several other (more serious and far more sinister) issues also on the table. Perhaps, after today, we’ll finally get to hear what those issues actually were
17 Jul 2012, 12:52 pm
@wpstormerbok(wpstormerbok)-263:
This aint gindergarten. We don’t moderate we assess only.
17 Jul 2012, 12:53 pm
More like Interweb Barbie.He probably has more tantrums in one day than the normal woman would have in a lifetime.
17 Jul 2012, 12:53 pm
@the artist formerly known as gunther(gunther)-268: good day Gunther mate, how you see your Bulls doing this weekend?? I hope you guys can pull it off,
17 Jul 2012, 12:54 pm
@Hurricane(Hurricane)-272: Shadow is a dead ringer for Forest!
17 Jul 2012, 12:56 pm
@sharks_lover(sharks_lover)-269:
for sure bud…
it’s the old saffa chestnut… if our teams can bring the required level of intensity they would be helluva hard to beat… but when we’re ahead on the scoreboard or the log or in our minds… the complacency sets in like ink on blotting paper and we get whipped…
but in their favor the sharks have indeed played with the required intensity lately… so no reason why they can’t do so again…
gonna be two helluva hard matches… just hope they’re not controversial for stupid reasons…
17 Jul 2012, 12:58 pm
@Nikita(Nikita)-275:
Huh!
17 Jul 2012, 12:58 pm
@sharks_lover(sharks_lover)-241: i’m not stirring any pot but you deny that you step into the gutter with HG, ferh & predawn, you say what they say you do not endorse but the evidence is there for everyone to see. you love the muck
17 Jul 2012, 12:58 pm
@Nikita(Nikita)-275:
lol
Lucky its not gindergarten.
17 Jul 2012, 12:59 pm
@Sharks fans are genuine Bok supporters(Predawn)-265: use that extensively powerful wit you are so convinced you are famously endowed with .. just like the other fakefcks such as katmancannado and gunthergwat and atreides who are so enamored with their better bred wit that they went to university to acquire and studied so hard to master… use your exuberant wit.. that’s if you have any.
17 Jul 2012, 13:00 pm
@Transformation(Transformation)-281: Aren’t there quite a few stormers bloggers who are as much in the muck as those you mentioned?
17 Jul 2012, 13:00 pm
Olive branches for sale. Apply here…
17 Jul 2012, 13:00 pm
@Nikita(Nikita)-275:
I beg to differ.
So many throwing their toys out their cots and with my daddy’s stronger than yours debates going around you can’t blame some for thinking there’s some snotty noses behind the boards.
And if you could do some assessments it would be of great help.
17 Jul 2012, 13:01 pm
@ufo(ufo)-279: agreed, i think Sharks are going to have to weaken the Reds forward pack resolve first in order to win this one, Thats the only slight weakness i see in their team,tries is not what this match is about, its winning and winning only, so for me we should take a leaf out of the Stormer book and play it in the defense mould, and feed off their mistakes, dont kick the ball away all the time, with our big forwards we must keep the ball in hand as much as possible
17 Jul 2012, 13:01 pm
@Transformation(Transformation)-274: I still believe 80% of the so called ‘charges’ against Mitchell come from within the union’s offices and corridors.
The players were tag alongs.
You can not tell me that Ackerman and co (the management team) allowed Mitchell to ‘abuse’ players in training for months, and then suddenly decided to back up the players statements when they did?
Nah, something is still way off, and I hope we get the truth at some stage.
17 Jul 2012, 13:01 pm
White settlers never stole any land from Africans: iLIVE
Black Africans NEVER owned any land. Any form of formal ownership is a Western concept. The ‘black’ tribes of the mid 19th century haphazardly SETTLED in an ad hoc manner – effectively governed by tribal savagery, in other words, the most savage ruled the land (a bit like Hillbrow today). They simply ran away until they could not run anymore – not having ANY grasp of the concept of a horizon or for that matter any measure of finite land mass – eg the boundaries – that is the fundamental concept of ownership.
Who “disadvantaged” the ‘black’ people of the interior in Southern Africa before the (supposed) belligerent ‘white’ settlers moved inland in the mid 19th century..? As certainly, what the ‘settlers’ found was not a hugely advanced infrastructure, deep mines, airports, vast libraries of written works, grandiose institutions of learning, etc. No, as little as 170 years ago they found masses of black people (indigenous to the Southern tip of Africa, The San) living on the fringes of the stone age. Beings in skins, wielding sticks, living primitive dwellings, dragging and carrying things around, who had not even invented the wheel yet.
Insert by Herman Griessel:- The San were the indigenous people of Southern Africa, if there needs to be any Land Reform it should be with the San, the rest of the Black African tribes as well as the White are and were all immigrants to Southern Africa, including Zimbabwe, and from other parts of the world and Northern Africa.
The linguistic core of the Bantu family of languages, a branch of the *****-Congo language family, was located in the region of modern Cameroon and Eastern Nigeria. From this core, expansion began about three thousand years ago, with one stream going more or less east into East Africa, and other streams going south along the African coast of Gabon, Democratic Congo and Angola, or inland along the many south to north flowing rivers of the Congo River system. The expansion eventually reached South Africa probably as recently as 300 A.D
Ethiopia – a country that was NEVER colonised. Today one of the most desolate places on the planet – who “disadvantaged” the people of Ethiopia..?
Put Zimbabwe and Germany next to each other and please explain the differences. In 1945 Germany was (for all intents and purposes) flattened to the ground and torn in half. Fifteen years later, West Germany was described as an “Economic Wonder”. Around the same time as the end of Apartheid, Germany was re-unified. It yanked the (unified) Germany back four centuries in time.
Yet, in (around) fifteen years (for the second time in a few decades) it built an ‘economic wonder’ – today, fast becoming a global leader in almost every aspect. Reminder: a lineage very strongly associated with… WHITE AFRIKAANS SPEAKING people…
Insert by Herman Griessel:- I am a third generation White South African semi retired Farmer, my Grandfather arrived in the Cape in 1895, having originated from Southern Bavaria Germany, and took part in the second Boer War (1899 – 1902), against the English off course. I disinvested in Agricultural Land in South Africa in 1994, 16 farms employing ± 2, 000 Black African people, I could see what was coming, and here it now is. Google my name Herman Griessel, and read my story of farming on the borders of Southern Africa from 1975 and onwards.
On the ‘flip side’ – Zimbabwe – was handed one of the wealthiest countries in the WORLD (eg a currency that was worth more than the USA Dollar, etc) – what is it today..? Competing with Ethiopia to be the most desolate hell-hole on the planet..? Please explain…
Quote from Ian Johnston an ex Rhodesian, has published a book “Thru Thick ‘n’ Thin, a must read, and who happens to be my neighbour:- Remember ” We won the land from the mosquitoes and the tsetse flies”
And what he is implying here is that the White African Rhodesians, through the technology of the day, won back large tracts of land that was riddled with tsetse fly and Malaria, where before the Black African could not settle or graze their cattle, nothing was ever taken from them, in retrospect their very lives were enhanced and improved to the extreme in comparison.
The below insert from just the other day March 2011, this is what Zimbabwe has come to, and no one lifts a finger.
By Tariro Madzongwe
HARARE, Mar 25, 2011 (IPS) – The identity of as many as a thousand decomposing bodies in an abandoned mine in Mount Darwin, 100 kilometres north of Harare, may never be known. “War veterans” associated with the ruling Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front party are removing them with no regard for preserving evidence.
You cannot take something from somebody WHO NEVER HAD IT..! In fact, what is it that white people, specifically white men, is supposed to “give back” to black people..? Can someone PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE explain to me what it is that white men took from blacks?
Money, Capital and the pivotal mechanisms of the wealth that allows you to breathe, eat, have children, live a rather healthy productive and fulfilling life, but also allowed the cognitive development that leads to metropolitan development and infrastructure as we see it today – it is ALL of Western origins. In fact, the key advancements in modern finance and economics were made by the… ….DUTCH. Why do you think it is called ‘Wall Street’..? It was initially ‘Wal Straat’ – yes my dear, the Dutch took their cognitive substance there as well… The same Dutch that were the most direct descendants of the people that landed at the Cape in 1652 – in fact, the modern ‘WEALTH system’ was originated by the Dutch and it funded the explorations around the tip of Africa.
Mmmm… I just hate the implicit assumption that ‘whites’ stole from ‘blacks’…
Author: J. Theron – Brisbane Australia – July 2011
Insert from London Times: “South Africa is the only country in the world where affirmative action is in the favour of the majority who has complete political control. The fact that the political majority requires affirmative action to protect them against a 9% minority group is testament to a complete failure on their part to build their own wealth making structures, such that their only solution is to take it from others.”
17 Jul 2012, 13:02 pm
Better bred indeed.
It’s not hard.
Fuckadilly sets the bar pretty low.
17 Jul 2012, 13:03 pm
@Hurricane(Hurricane)-262: hey who are you calling crazy, you kiwi
17 Jul 2012, 13:03 pm
@ufo(ufo)-279: Why the hell as us saffa’s so weak mentally? Rugby, cricket etc? We have probably the best schoolboy set-up rugby wise but fail to deliver constantly at U20 level, our Provinical teams have a lot of depth but do not dominate as they should….and don’t even get me started on our cricket sides….
17 Jul 2012, 13:03 pm
@Nikita(Nikita)-275: as much as that makes sense it also does not,
why not have a mute aka ignore button installed on a thread where one can simply just click and not see the fool thats out all the time to insult and antagonise?? surely that would bring sanity?
17 Jul 2012, 13:04 pm
@Snoek(Snoek)-289:
hmmm read the first line and thought it would be stupid to read on.
17 Jul 2012, 13:05 pm
@Skeppie(Skeppie)-284: yes there are and sharky enjoys nothing more than giving them s.hit about it, there ones i mentioned, he kowtows to and gives them the mormon handshake.
17 Jul 2012, 13:06 pm
@sharks_lover(sharks_lover)-293:
Dynamite?
BOOM BOOM
17 Jul 2012, 13:06 pm
@Transformation(Transformation)-291:
Sorry trans, but you are crazy in a good and nice way
….did i get out of that?
17 Jul 2012, 13:07 pm
@Snoek(Snoek)-289: eish Snoek that will open a whole new can of worms in here
17 Jul 2012, 13:07 pm
@Hurricane(Hurricane)-262: It’s a microcosim of the macrocosim.
17 Jul 2012, 13:08 pm
@Nikita(Nikita)-296: you have seen me say this?? but again if you didnt like it and out in the measures to ignore it it would be simple, just click, very easy really
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