In the aftermath of his side’s Absa Currie Cup defeat at the hands of Western Province at the weekend, Sharks coach John Plumtree has made the signing of Juan Martin Hernandez a top priority as he attempts to pick up the pieces over the next few days.
Apart from losing their first Currie Cup match of the season, there was more woe for the defending champions after the Newlands clash when Plumtree learnt his depleted troops are also likely to be without influential captain Johann Muller for some time.
Muller cried off in the second half with a broken arm. In the past few weeks Hernandez, the Argentine flyhalf who played a prominent role in his steering his country to a third place at the 2007 Rugby World Cup and then short-listed for the IRB World Player of the Year award, has been targeted mainly by French outfit Toulon, the Sharks, with Western Province also showing interest.
Hernandez has been plying his trade in Paris with Stade Francais but has shown a keen interest to move to South Africa to join up with the Sharks for their Currie Cup and even the Super 14 campaign next year.
In the absence of Springboks Ruan Pienaar and Francois Steyn, Plumtree opted to field the talented rookie, Guy Cronje, at Newlands where although he did nothing wrong, he failed to stamp his authority on the match, given that the Sharks were on the back foot for most of the game.
”Guy is an excellent prospect for the future,” said Plumtree. ”He’s brave and has a lot of natural ability, but he needs to work on his kicking.
”The process of signing Hernandez is ongoing. There are certain processes in place to secure his signature and hopefully we’ll move forward with that in the next few days.
”As there is a shortage of good flyhalves in this country, we’ve got to recruit some players. As Muller will be out for six to eight weeks, we’re going to have to find a new lock as well.
”But Hernandez will be a massive coup if we should get him. He is sure to solve a number of problems.
”We also have [Waylon] Murray coming back, so we’re immediately looking better if you take those two players into account.
”We’re down on numbers and we’re stressed for depth. But it’s not a new situation to us at this stage of the competition. We’ll have to fight and try and pick up some wins until we get the guys back from Springbok duty.
”But we probably have to take a look at our overall recruiting process, because it’s not always in your favour to have 10 Springboks away if you’re trying to win the Currie Cup. We need to recruit players that we will have for a whole year and not only six months.
”We know what the situation is and we’ll try to hang in there until the Springboks return. Hopefully we are still in contention for the play-offs at that point; otherwise we will have to build for the Super 14.
”If WP doesn’t make the top four then there are some serious problems. For us, it’s the other way around. We just need to keep building.”
The Sharks will be returning to the Western Cape next weekend for a match against Boland in Wellington on Friday evening, when wet weather and muddy conditions are likely to prevail again. — Sapa