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The Sharks are riding a wave of confidence following seven successive victories in this year's Absa Currie Cup while the Bulls suffered a shock 22-21 defeat to the Pumas last weekend and have now slipped to fourth position on the log with a 50% win rate from their eight fixtures. They currently trail The Sharks by 12 log points.
To say they are determined to turn around matters and reverse a first round 34-28 loss to The Sharks at The Absa Stadium Durban earlier in the tournament would be putting it mildly, but they do have to counter the best attacking side in the tournament as far as tries go - The Sharks have scored 36 so far, the Bulls 25.
Defensively, The Sharks have also been outstanding, having conceded 17 tries in their eight games so far, the Bulls have let in 23 and will hope to curb The Sharks attacking prowess while looking to broach their excellent defensive structures.
But this game isn't playing on paper with numbers, stats and facts determining the winner, but with passion, heart, effort and commitment and there should be no shortage of determination from either side in this traditionally tough, hard-fought fixture.
“Bulls-Sharks games are always a special event for us, I'm sure it the same for them,” admits coach John Plumtree. “We enjoy playing them and they enjoying playing us and clashes between the two sides are always pretty titanic. Both teams have big sets of ball runners and I'm sure it will be pretty intense.
“Playing at Loftus is always a big challenge and the boys will be excited from a motivational perspective. The Bulls will be hurting a bit after the weekend, they possibly got distracted with the off-field incident with Bees Roux and I'm sure they will be pretty fired up. Maybe there is added spice for them with their current situation and we're expecting it to be tough as always.”
“They'll be excited about playing at home and playing us, I'm sure they will talk us up. But we are pretty realistic, what's happened in the past means nothing when these two teams play each other. This fixture always means raised levels of intensity – that's something that doesn't change from one season to the next.”
Going back over the past five fixtures between the two teams at Loftus, an interesting statistic emerges: The Sharks have lost just once in Pretoria between now and 2005, losing 35-14 in 2008 – the year The Sharks won the trophy.
The Bulls have failed to defeat The Sharks in all Absa Currie Cup matches since then. Last year saw the Bulls win the tournament and the only home defeat suffered was, yes, against The Sharks.
