Grobelaar shifts to flank for Glasgow clash

Grobler has impressed since his arrival in Durban and has been a constant in the Sharks side throughout the backend of the Currie Cup and was prominent against his former employer Munster last weekend.

The shift to the side of the scrum isn’t a drastic switch as coach Everitt explains.

“When we signed Gerbrandt it was in a dual role; at lock and at blindside flank,” Everitt said. “He does add a different dimension in our line-out from a flank point of view and we know that Glasgow contest line-outs really well so we feel that the change will strengthen our team.”

The Sharks could argue that the score-line against Munster flattered the hosts, and they were better value than the score suggests. Everitt knows that all that went wrong is easily fixable going into this weekend’s encounter at Scoutston’s Stadium.

“We had a look at the video after the game and seventeen penalties is not acceptable and I think at times we were on the wrong side of the 50/50 calls.

“We need to adapt to the interpretation at the maul and it was a massive learning curve for us, and we didn’t play the game in the right areas.

“This meant that when Munster turned us over with good defence we paid the price,” he added.

The Sharks will be playing on an artificial surface for the first time on Saturday and Everitt’s brains trust have been hard at work analysing the impact of the surface.

“If you look at GPS stats when you train on grass compared to 4G you more highspeed running,” Everitt commented.

“We have trained well on the 4G on Tuesday and had a good scrumming and line-out session again today and I think the team have adapted well so we don’t see the surface as an issue at all.”

The other changes to the Sharks side see Fez Mbatha return to the starting line-up after a long period away with the Springboks and injury.

He replaces Kerron van Vuuren who shifts to the bench while Ruben van Heerden comes into the second row with Grobler moving to flank and Henco Venter dropping out of the match 23.

In the final change Murray Koster comes into the side at inside centre as a swap for Marius Louw.

Tian Meyer is also in line to get a cap for the Sharks off the bench at scrumhalf in place of Sanele Nohamba.

Cell C Sharks
15 Curwin Bosch, 14 Yaw Penxe, 13 Werner Kok, 12 Murray Koster, 11 Thaakir Abrahams, 10 Boeta Chamberlain, 9 Ruan Pienaar, 8 Phepsi Buthelezi (Capt), 7 Gerbrandt Grobler, 6 Dylan Richardson, 5 Ruben van Heerden, 4 Le Roux Roets, 3 Thomas du Toit (v/c), 2 Fez Mbatha, 1 Khwezi Mona.

Replacements
16 Kerron van Vuuren, 17 Ntuthuko Mchunu, 18 Lourens Adriaanse, 19 Hyron Andrews, 20 Thembelani Bholi, 21 James Venter, 22 Tian Meyer, 23 Jeremy Ward.