After making his first appearance of the season as a replacement late in the 34-26 loss to Uster at the weekend, Jordan Hendrikse should be ready to wear the Hollywoodbets Sharks No 10 in the Vodacom URC fourth round game against the Scarlets at Kings Park on Saturday.
Those who remember how ineffectual the Springbok-capped former Lions flyhalf was towards the end of last season might be tempted to ask “So what?”
However, there was context to the last months of the 2024/25 term for Hendrikse, with coach John Plumtree disclosing during the off-season that it was found that the player was struggling with an injury for much of that time and it impacted on his form and his confidence - much like was the case with Lukhanyo Am.
Like Am, Hendrikse has subsequently had the issue sorted out, with the delay to his start to the new season revolving around the need for him to be completely ready. Could he be the solution to the much-focused-on Sharks' failure to get their attack going and all aspects of the team’s template coordinated and synchronised?
Much is made of the number of Bok stars the Sharks have on their books, but the most successful teams are the ones with world class flyhalves, game drivers who can be likened to being military generals in their positions.
The best Sharks/Natal teams of the past 30 odd years have had clearly identifiable match-winning flyhalves - Joel Stransky in 1990, Henry Honiball a bit after that, then Frenchman Thierry Lacroix, 2007 World Cup winner Butch James, another Frenchman, Frederik Michalak after that and then Patrick Lambie, who won the 2010 Currie Cup final almost on his own.
If you consider the flaws evident in the pre-Plumtree era when Curwin Bosch and Boeta Chamberlain were the No 10s, and the chasm in ability between them and the previously mentioned players, that kind of accomplished game driver is something the Sharks have been lacking for a long time.
Hendrikse has shown in glimpses both for his previous franchise team and for the Boks and Sharks that he does have the ability - it just needs to be developed.
IT'S A FOLLY TO EXPECT AN OVERNIGHT FIX
By now, it should be clear to anyone who has insight into the challenges Plumtree faces with having so many Boks on his books, which in this era means at this time of the year you only see some influential members of your team sporadically, that there is folly in expecting an overnight fix to anything.
The coach doesn’t have a pre-season with his Boks as this is a different time to when, for example, players like Schalk Burger, Jean de Villiers, Victor Matfield and Fourie du Preez were champions as much for their franchises as they were for their country.
In the Super Rugby era, those players would have their season end in November at the conclusion of the Bok overseas tour and would take the whole of December off as well as the first week or so of January.
They’d have a complete six-week break, and then when they reported for the pre-season, there would still be around five or six weeks to go before the Super Rugby kick-off. We used to think at the time that it wasn’t always optimum, and maybe that they should have had more time both to prepare and to rest, but it was far more time than the three days Plumtree had with his returning Boks ahead of last week’s Ulster clash.
Five or six weeks does give a coach time to work on aspects of the game that need it, to make adjustments that are needed to his template, to get his players acquainted with the game he wants to play in the forthcoming season.
DHL Stormers coach John Dobson, with far fewer Boks currently involved with the national squad on his books than the Sharks had in the pre-season, and with the right attitude to where the Carling Currie Cup stands these days in SA rugby’s eco-system, had that opportunity before this URC campaign and it may be one of the reasons his team is topping the log after four rounds.
But if you are overloaded with Boks in the modern era, coaches don’t get the pre-season window they were afforded in the Super Rugby era, and injuries also forced Plumtree to go cap in hand to some of the coaches of the smaller Currie Cup unions to ask for loan reinforcements that only concluded of the domestic season. In other words, a week before the URC kick-off.
FOUR FLYHALVES ACROSS FIRST FOUR ROUNDS
It might have been easier for Plumtree if his top game drivers were ever-present through the off-season, although in saying that, we are forgetting that at stages of the pre-season, he was working with just 10 players.
You simply can’t work effectively with that number. Still, it is a fact that the Sharks’ underwhelming start to this URC campaign has seen four different flyhalves used across four games.
Jordan’s brother Jaden, normally a scrumhalf, played the opener against Glasgow Warriors at Scotstoun in the No. 10 jersey. Young Jean Smith, who cut his teeth at senior level for the first time in the latter stages of the Currie Cup and is promising but still callow, then took over for the games against the Dragons and Leinster, with Siya Masuku, the most experienced specialist pivot at that point, then coming in at the latter stages in Dublin before starting against Ulster.
Jordan Hendrikse’s late cameo, which wasn’t without promise, made it four flyhalves across four games.
Hendrikse was in the Bok mix last year, but national coach Rassie Erasmus appears to have made it easier for Plumtree for now by settling on three pivots, with the Sharks player not in the mix.
PLUMTREE HAS MORE TO WORK WITH DURING THE BREAK
Indeed, while the players themselves will understandably not be delighted, Erasmus has also helped Plumtree by excluding the experienced front row duo of Vincent Koch and Bongi Mbonambi from the end-of-year tour (although both are on standby).
That means that the Sharks coach will have more experienced hands on deck in the five weeks that separate Saturday’s game against the Scarlets from the next encounter, which is against Connacht in Galway on 29 November.
The Boks will be playing Wales that same day, so the players who he works with in the coming weeks will be the ones who front the team now coached by former England mentor Stuart Lancaster.
With someone like lock Jason Jenkins having joined Hendrikse by being absent so far but due to return to the playing field, and Jurenzo Julius also back now and gaining momentum after missing the pre-season due to injury, Plumtree will have more to work with in this mini pre-season than he had in the pre-season proper.
But the presence of Hendrikse and his effectiveness after hopefully shaking off the injury that was inhibiting him in the second half of last season, will be key.
MASUKU HAS BECOME A CURATE’S EGG
Masuku has become a bit of a Curate’s egg recently, meaning good in parts and bad in parts - and last week he was mostly bad.
In mitigation to him, the Sharks would surely have trained like that during the week, but it was hard to equate the deep lining flyhalf we saw against Ulster with the one that transformed the Sharks by hitting the gainline when he replaced Curwin Bosch as the Sharks No 10 two seasons ago.
Admittedly when saying that a flyhalf lined up flatter than Bosch that’s a bit like saying that a courgette looks vaguely more like a banana than an apple does, but still - Masuku needs to work on his consistency.
Hendrikse is the fourth ranked Bok flyhalf, well at least specialist flyhalf because of course Damian Willemse could do the job too. Hendrikse isn’t completely specialist either and that cues a thought - hopefully Plumtree won’t play him at fullback on Saturday, for there is a need for the Sharks to create a general at 10. And that requires Hendrikse to have time in the saddle in that position.
The Sharks team for the Scarlets game will be announced on Thursday.
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