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.
Follow JC on Twitter
Follow SA Rugby magazine on Twitter
827 Comments
Pages: « 1 … 2 3 4 5 6 [7] 8 9 10 11 12 … 17 » Show All
17 Jul 2012, 13:09 pm
Nikita…
How appropriate that on this perfectly stunning Cape Town day you would appear on keo like a sunbeam through a window…!!
17 Jul 2012, 13:09 pm
@Hurricane(Hurricane)-294:
Pat Lam: “I’ve taken the final hit”
you gotta love kiwi drama
Outgoing Blues coach Pat Lam offered thinly-veiled criticism of the beleaguered franchise when delivering an impassioned valedictory at the team base in Auckland on Tuesday.
Lam compared his season coaching the side to lowest place in the New Zealand Super Rugby conference to fighting in the trenches.
“I sort of feel in my time here I have been out in the front line.
“I sat out in the front line taking shots left, right and centre and I sort of feel that this year particularly was the biggest war ever.
“I didn’t mind being out in the front because all the time I was out there I protected this franchise, I protected the people in it, I protected the team and the players.
“It appears I have taken the final hit,” he said.
“I never threw anyone under the bus. This franchise means a lot to me…sometimes people have to take the hit for it and I will take that, and I don’t mind, so long as things are done to ensure that this franchise is all it should be.”
The same selection panel as named John Kirwan as his replacement as coach from next month, had given Lam an 87 percent mark last year and he believed as a result of the experiences he endured this year he had emerged as a better coach.
The people who mattered, the players, knew he had given everything to the job and he left the position with head high.
Lam said after receiving a visit from Blues chairman Gary Whetton and Blues chief executive Andy Dalton to inform him of the decision that his parting wish was that the board and Dalton give Kirwan everything he needed to help the team succeed.
“Ultimately, this [Auckland] is my home town, this is my team. No matter where I am around the world, no matter where I go this will always be my team. I want this team to be successful,” he said.
“I just plead that JK [Kirwan] gets everything he needs. He’s a good man,” he said.
17 Jul 2012, 13:09 pm
@Transformation(Transformation)-295: I am not sure I want to know what a mormon handshake is…..
17 Jul 2012, 13:11 pm
@Skeppie(Skeppie)-292:
i dunno bud…
drives me nuts too…
only sportsman we ever had who produced the goods every single time… imo…
was brian mitchell…
17 Jul 2012, 13:11 pm
The man campaigning for sanity on here…….is actually the most insane on keo.Crazy,but can only happen on keo!
17 Jul 2012, 13:11 pm
@stormer in a teacup(stormer in a teacup)-299:
lol i had to google that Stormer.
17 Jul 2012, 13:12 pm
@Transformation(Transformation)-239: On the shed, on the shed, on the shed!!!
17 Jul 2012, 13:13 pm
UFO
Good, bad, mediocre or whatever it is, if you say so, I take it as a compliment.
17 Jul 2012, 13:14 pm
@fitz1ella(fitz1ella)-283:
But you left out so many other names. What’s with that? You don’t give enough of us the reputation we so richly deserve.
17 Jul 2012, 13:15 pm
@fitz1ella(fitz1ella)-234: Luister nou mooi, you fcken hippie hillbilly. You had used the word “fakefuk” about a dozen times – mostly to describe me – before I asked you what it meant. I asked whether it referred to someone who’s sexual boasts had very little to do with his actual action (like you), because if it did, then I was more of a realfuk than a fakefuk. And this set you off on a vile and completely irrelevant rant about my wife and kids. You even asked me how many kids I had so that I could prove I was getting some action.
Seriously? You want to tell me that’s normal? You want to convince the other bloggers here that you were somehow justified? You want us to believe that the amount of kids one has somehow defines who you are? (I have two, by the way, not that it’s any of your business)
You are so fcked in the head, and have clearly been like this for so long, that you are way beyond salvaging. You will live out your days like this, and probably worsening as your condition deteriorates. And somehow this gives me satisfaction, knowing that you will become more and more hated as you become more and more decrepit.
May you sht through your adult diapers daily, skoppie. And may the nursing home staff leave you in it to teach you a lesson.
17 Jul 2012, 13:17 pm
@stormersboy(stormersboy)-57:
well said, sir
17 Jul 2012, 13:18 pm
@ufo(ufo)-304: What bothers me is that it seems like an endemic thing with most saffa sportsmen…Ernie is a classic example. Look at how our cricket side crumble when the pressure starts mounting. Although mentioning cricket I would have to add Jacque Kallis to the list of exclusions
17 Jul 2012, 13:19 pm
@Skeppie(Skeppie)-292:
Because we are too conservative and scared to think outside of the box.
17 Jul 2012, 13:19 pm
KATMAN
Never tell your problems to anyone here on Keo – 20% don’t care and the other 80% are glad you have them!
17 Jul 2012, 13:20 pm
@Skeppie(Skeppie)-292: Calvinistic tendencies and our national psyche.
“God will provide if you work hard enough, and there is no need to focus on mental strength as God will provide that 2 when it is needed.”
Mental conditioning is ignored in this country, when it should be shoved down kids throats from day 1. It is as important as physical and spiritual conditioning and for the most is ignored. Even when confronted with it, many will wave off it’s relevance and importance.
Aussies and Kiwi’s be having it in spades………yet we, like the scientologists believe for some baffling reason, that it is overrated – when ALL the evidence shows otherwise.
17 Jul 2012, 13:21 pm
@Nikita(Nikita)-308:
all good… absolutely a compliment…
you should post more often
use it… don’t…
17 Jul 2012, 13:21 pm
@Nikita(Nikita)-314:
lol
17 Jul 2012, 13:21 pm
@willievz(willievz)-313: Seems like it…..imagine the performances we could unlock if we had the Kiwi natural flair and attacking mindset to go along with our natural/cultural strength’s.
17 Jul 2012, 13:22 pm
@>^..^< katman(katman)-310: lol I’ve been reading it as ‘facefuk’ all day
17 Jul 2012, 13:24 pm
@The Sharks rugby pedigree is packaged by Mad Eye Productions.(The Sharks rugby pedigree is packaged as dog food)-315: “You can’t have a rational argument with religious people. Otherwise there would be no religious people” Dr Gregory House
17 Jul 2012, 13:24 pm
UFO
Will you pay me? I work for a living but I don’t live for work.
17 Jul 2012, 13:24 pm
@The Sharks rugby pedigree is packaged by Mad Eye Productions.(The Sharks rugby pedigree is packaged as dog food)-315: And to add to that: By the time most professional sportsmen get the opportunity to work with mental maestros, they have already retreated so far into their “shells”, it becomes way hard and almost impossible to break those shackles.
Breaking shackles kids are wearing is easier than breaking the ones an adult, or young adult has worn his whole life.
17 Jul 2012, 13:25 pm
@Skeppie(Skeppie)-312:
agree hundreds… it is something in our ‘water’… not the drinking stuff… the stuff within us…
brian mitchell the only one who came with game every time…
maybe it’s in the VAWTER…
17 Jul 2012, 13:25 pm
@The Sharks rugby pedigree is packaged by Mad Eye Productions.(The Sharks rugby pedigree is packaged as dog food)-315: Yeah I fully agree, what the Aussies have acheived with their limited resources is proof of this.
17 Jul 2012, 13:25 pm
@ufo(ufo)-301: Good lord, pull up your pants, man!
17 Jul 2012, 13:25 pm
@Nikita(Nikita)-314: True. But I don’t. Unlike that geriatric phony who treats this site like something between an agony aunt column and a psychiatric institution wall.
17 Jul 2012, 13:26 pm
@Nikita(Nikita)-314:
I care Niki.
I care a lot.
I am that kind of person.
I am not like the rest.
17 Jul 2012, 13:26 pm
@Nikita(Nikita)-321:
hehehe…
as do many of us…
send me your CV…
or just post on your tea breaks…
17 Jul 2012, 13:27 pm
@rossoneri(rossoneri)-307: thick fockers love sheds
17 Jul 2012, 13:27 pm
So,Katman can’t get it up?Ai shame.See Nikita,I care about katman’s teeny weeny problem.
17 Jul 2012, 13:27 pm
@Atreides(Atreides)-325:
Good lord, pull up your mind, man…!
17 Jul 2012, 13:28 pm
@Skeppie(Skeppie)-318: True…
But, as a conservative, Calvinistic society, we don’t like people/sportsmen who cannot be pigeonholed or who are sligtly extravagant or colourful. Or who don’t fit the profile of other job candidates.
Think of
Schalk Britz
Brent Russell
Bobby Skinstad
Ryan Kankowski
Gio Aplon
And other sports:
Kevin Pietersen
Llewellyn Herbert
Okkert Brits
If Shane Warne was a South African, he would not have played test cricket.
17 Jul 2012, 13:29 pm
@cane(cane)-327: You certainly aren’t like the rest, Cane. As most of the restraining orders against you waste no time in pointing out.
17 Jul 2012, 13:29 pm
@ufo(ufo)-331: hahahaha!
17 Jul 2012, 13:29 pm
@>^..^< katman(katman)-326:
Dare to share?
@cane(cane)-327:
LOL
17 Jul 2012, 13:31 pm
@ufo(ufo)-328:
Do you need someone who can count?
17 Jul 2012, 13:31 pm
Disgusting stuff from Sharks Lover here again today.
17 Jul 2012, 13:32 pm
@willievz(willievz)-332: Flippin depressing when you think about it.
17 Jul 2012, 13:33 pm
@Skeppie(Skeppie)-324: Aussie and Kiwi kids are given a lot more leeway in terms of ‘thinking for themselves’ and ‘finding their own identities’ from a young age.
In SA, our kids don’t have that luxury. Probably because 95% of the parents have spent their whole lives ‘fitting into’ a specific race, culture or language.
We are told where we belong, and how to act in order to keep belonging. Deviate from that – and BOOM.
And I must be very honest with you, this is one of my Heyneke Meyer gripes. The man is supposedly a wonderful psychologist and motivator. YET: he more than any other Bok coach before him, has laid it out in black and white (with no room for maneuvering) – his type of player, his game plan, his religion etc. Once more – players forced into ‘groups’…..no room for anything beyond this.
(And he is on record as saying these things)
National psyche and Calvinistic leanings…….I cal it ou-doos and narrow minded.
17 Jul 2012, 13:34 pm
@Skeppie(Skeppie)-318:
The continuous selection of Morne Steyn as Bok 10 tells you everything you need to know about SA as a sporting society…
17 Jul 2012, 13:34 pm
@Nikita(Nikita)-336:
not really, we have a counter…
17 Jul 2012, 13:34 pm
@Dawn(Dawn)-337:
Don’t fear, I’m here. This broom is very busy today.
17 Jul 2012, 13:36 pm
@willievz(willievz)-332:
In other words……..BlueBull mentality
17 Jul 2012, 13:36 pm
I hope you swept out the foul mouthed one.
17 Jul 2012, 13:36 pm
@willievz(willievz)-332: Spot on X1000000000000000.
We don’t even like small rugby players…..never mind those who dress differently
17 Jul 2012, 13:37 pm
@The Sharks rugby pedigree is packaged by Mad Eye Productions.(The Sharks rugby pedigree is packaged as dog food)-339:
Are you the multinic? Pleased to meet you.
17 Jul 2012, 13:38 pm
@Nikita(Nikita)-342: funny you are, thats for sure
17 Jul 2012, 13:38 pm
@willievz(willievz)-340: Spot on again. That’s 3 gold ‘interweb olympics’ medals for you.
17 Jul 2012, 13:39 pm
@Sharks fans are genuine Bok supporters(Predawn)-344:
If I got smart with you how would you know?
17 Jul 2012, 13:40 pm
@Sharks fans are genuine Bok supporters(Predawn)-344: no no predawn shes also a Stormer supporter, so she dont see their ways , dawn is one of the main culprits in making her nasty little remarks then sits back and screams her innocence
So no doubt boet, Nikita will side with the ilk from her neck of the woods, it matters not what they start or say, so ignore it
Pages: « 1 … 2 3 4 5 6 [7] 8 9 10 11 12 … 17 » Show All
Have your say
You must be logged in to post a comment.