Good news on Lambie for Sharks

The good news for the Sharks is that Patrick Lambie is on course for a comeback in a month or so.

The good news for the Sharks is that Patrick Lambie is on course for a comeback in a month or so, but this is to a degree offset by the revelation that Joe Pietersen is leaving for Japan after the Super Rugby season while No 8 Renaldo Bothma has already departed for the Bulls.

The latter was arguably the best player in a losing Sharks team in 2015, but after suffering a pre-season injury, the Namibian international has seen that the loose forward depth at the Sharks is against him and he has been released to join the Pretoria franchise on a full-time contract.

Last year the blond-haired Bothma was a revelation in a Sharks team that was generally short on hunger, but this season he is up against the emerging Du Preez twins, plus Springbok Marcell Coetzee, not to mention Keegan Daniel, Tera Mtembu, Francois Kleinhans and Jacques Potgieter.

The latter is due to play again in three weeks time after returning to South African rugby following a season at the New South Wales Waratahs.

Pietersen has done a fine job in standing in for injured Lambie and the Sharks will wish the veteran luck in moving on to Japanese club Kamaishi.

The 31-year-old has played for the Stormers, the Cheetahs and French clubs Bayonne and Biarritz and now two years in Durban.

Lambie, meanwhile, is recovering well from a shoulder injury incurred in the pre-season friendly against Toulon and will start running with the squad soon and is earmarked for a return against the Kings on May 21.

Next week the Sharks return from their bye to host the Lions in what is amounting to a critical pool match as they vie to advance from their Africa Pool 2 to the quarter-finals.

And then the Sharks embark on a very tough away schedule that includes the Blues in Auckland, the Chiefs in Hamilton and the Highlanders in Dunedin. They briefly return home for a match against the Hurricanes before facing the Jaguares in Buenos Aires.

It could be worse. They could be a New Zealand team that plays home and away games against all of their fellow Kiwi teams. That, on the one hand, means that the New Zealanders face a constantly high standard of opposition but it also means they have almost no games against token opposition.

SA teams in the Sharks’ Pool by contrast have 10 “bonus” points against the Kings and the Sunwolves. - The Mercury