The NSW Waratahs are hopeful injured Wallabies Will Skelton and Nick Phipps will be back to bolster their Super Rugby side against the Sharks after the poor defensive effort last weekend.
Lock Skelton (hamstring) and halfback Phipps (ankle) were late withdrawals from the match against the Lions in Johannesburg, where the Waratahs crashed to a 55-36 loss.
“We’re hopeful that those guys this week can be included,” Tahs’ assistant coach Chris Malone said on Tuesday.
“We have to be smart in how we manage them in order to get them right.
“Saturday is still a fair way away. We’ll be making sure we give them the best possible chance to be ready to go.”
The Waratahs are already missing another influential Wallaby in five-eighth Bernard Foley.
The playmaker was sent home after he was ruled out of a second Super match when still displaying post-concussion symptoms from the head knock he got in a pre-season match almost three weeks ago.
“Bernard has arrived safely back in Australia and that’s the best place for him at the moment,” Malone said.
The Tahs conceded eight tries in their loss to the Lions and will be looking for a vastly improved defensive performance in Durban.
“We expect the Sharks to be very physical and they like to shift the ball around,” Malone said.
He thought the Waratahs needed to be smarter about how they got out of their own 22 after defending for long periods against the Lions.
“We put a lot of pressure on ourselves, we asked ourselves to make a lot of tackles which we didn’t need to make,” he said.
“We asked ourselves to defend inside our 22 for way too long and that’s something we can certainly improve going into the game this weekend.
“I think we had 22 lineouts against us on the weekend and a lot of those were in our own half. You can’t do that against big teams.”
Paul
Guest
Shorks by 30 with or without those 2
Machooka
Roar Guru
Guys... I thought, all things considered, that the Tahs that played weren't too bad. Just under-done. And when you consider who they were playing, where they were playing, and that altitude thingy it was a reasonable albeit disappointing result. Had the Tahs had big Will (yes James he was sorely missed), Phipps and Foley it would've been much closer. But we didn't. Paul, don't be too harsh on Simone... he will come good. For mine the positives were Latu (but he needs to improve his jawing at the refs), Kellaway, and the guys who filled in as they got valuable playing time against a quality side. Next it's the Sharks!
In brief
Guest
Agree Skelton was badly missed on the weekend
Paul
Guest
Hannigan is apparently injured till at least Rd 4 Well's has been really good. Strong in defence and busy. The back row is not where the injury concern is hurting us the most at the moment. No Foley and Simone being a newbie has hurt a lot. Simone has potential, but currently his defence is terrible.
Jameswm
Guest
We missed Skelton big time. We lost any chance of winning in the latter stages of the 1st half, conceding tries and men to the bin when defending lineout mauls near our line. We needed big Willie badly. We also missed Foley, Phipps and Holloway. Winning in SA is hard enough, without your first strong 8-9-10 axis. Is Hanigan not there? Why wasn't he on the bench last game? I'd start Dempsey at 8, and play Hanigan and Mumm at 5/6 (whichever way round).