By Gavin Rich.
The Cell C Sharks might feel they effectively saw lightning strike in the same place twice as they sunk almost without trace as Cardiff made history with a thumping 35-0 win at a drenched Kings Park on Sunday night.
The history making fact was that this was the first time a Welsh team has won in South Africa in the Vodacom United Rugby Championship under its current format.
It was the one bright light in a horrid weekend for Welsh rugby, with the three other Welsh clubs all losing in their games on South African soil and the Wales national team losing to Australia at the Millennium Stadium.
What a way to kick off our South African double header! A phenomenal performance, capped off with maximum points in Durban.
The lightning striking reference cues in the previous really bad performance by the Sharks in a home game in this competition in Durban.
That was back in March, when Edinburgh thumped them in similar fashion. Well, this was probably worse, but the big similarity between the two games was the conditions that they were played in – inclement, wet weather.
It didn’t look quite the monsoon type day in Durban that we saw back in March, but not far off it. Which means it was pretty much northern hemisphere conditions, which would have made the visitors feel at home.
WET WEATHER LESSON FROM VISITORS
And like Edinburgh did all those months ago, they gave the Sharks a wet weather rugby lesson, with the halfbacks Lloyd Williams and Jarrod Evans, but particularly Williams, giving a master class in how to control a wet weather game with the boot.
Blair Kinghorn and his halfback partner did something similar when Edinburgh were in town.
So given they had been in this situation before, this was a particularly abject performance from the Sharks, particularly in the first half, when repeatedly they displayed complete naivety in the way they appeared to handle the ball from deep instead of kicking it.
To add to the ignominy of this defeat for the Sharks, it was against a Cardiff team that hadn’t won on the road since last year.
Maybe fullback Anthony Volmink has lost confidence in his kicking boot, for he was particularly culpable, and turned in a jittery display, and it was him losing the ball trying to pass it that gifted the visitors their first genuine try, with Thomas Young going over after Volmink had virtually handed the ball to Cardiff near their line.
Volmink had earlier knocked on balls to conceded field position and had conceded kickable penalties so it was no surprise when Lionel Cronje came on at halftime to take up the flyhalf position so that Boeta Chamberlain, who has fullback experience, could move to the last line of defence.
Frankly it was an error on the part of the Sharks’ coaching staff not to make that move much earlier, or even started with that configuration when they saw the weather.
PENALTY TRY WAS RIGHT CALL
Why we refer to Young’s try as the first proper five pointer for Cardiff was because their first try was an automatic seven pointer courtesy of a penalty try.
There was some debate from the commentators about whether it was the right call from Irish referee Frank Murphy, with Manus Potgieter effectively being carded and penalised for tapping the ball back over the dead ball line when the aforementioned Young, after a kick through, was diving for the ball on the tryline.
But while it did require a double think at the time, a look at the incident in slow motion does show that Potgieter had no intention of grounding the ball and was tapping it back, and the law is quite clear.
Young would have dotted down had Potgieter not challenged illegally so it was the correct call.
That score came when Cardiff were already ahead 6-0 after two penalties from Evans as Cardiff dominated the territory and tactical battle, while the Sharks forwards struggled to get any foothold in the game.
The best Sharks scoring chance in the first half was when they set up a driving maul opportunity from an attacking lineout but it was easily repelled by Cardiff.
CARDIFF DRIVING MAUL GOT IT RIGHT
When the roles were reversed nine minutes into the second half Cardiff drove over easily for a driving maul try that turned out to be Young’s second, and of course it could have been a third were it not for Potgieter action earlier.
The Cardiff maul try meant their 23-0 halftime lead went to 28-0 and that was effectively the end of any Sharks chance of turning around the Cardiff dominance of the first half.
Then came a well worked try to fullback Ben Thomas as Cardiff, almost unbelievably considering the pre-match expectations, notched their bonus point before the hour mark had been reached and Evans’ conversion stretched the score to 35-0.
The weather might be seen as mitigation for the Sharks but the reality of playing rugby in summer in South Africa is that the Sharks will both play and train in a lot of wet weather, for summer, and particularly the months from October through to late December, is rainy season in KwaZulu/Natal.
There’s also the ever present humidity, which turns all summer games pretty much into wet weather games by rendering the ball a slippery piece of soap.
So there really is no excuse for the Sharks, who although they were missing several Springboks did have a very experienced team playing for them due to the depth they have built up because of the financial muscle they have acquired through their American equity partners.
The Stormers lost to Cardiff in wet weather away to Cardiff a few weeks ago but at least in their case they were competitive and were playing on an unfamiliar synthetic pitch.
The Sharks must be used to wet weather if they live in Durban in November. This was the most rudderless Sharks performance since Crusaders hammered them at home in a Super Rugby game on the Easter Saturday of 2015, a day when the Crusaders won 52-10 despite losing three players to yellow cards during the course of the game.
This was as bad as that.
Scores
Cardiff 35 – Tries: Thomas Young 2, Ben Thomas; Conversion: Jarrod Evans; Penalty try; Penalties: Jarrod Evans 2. Cell C Sharks – 0.
Meanwhile the Dragons were made to rue wasted opportunities as they suffered their first defeat in three matches in a battling 33-25 United Rugby Championship loss at the hands of the Lions in Johannesburg.
Prior to Sunday’s fixture, the hosts had won all three of their away fixtures but suffered defeats in each of their three matches at Emirates Airline Park.