Durban - The Sharks began their pre-season training this week ahead of the new United Rugby Championship (URC) season in September, and smiling fresh faces in the ranks were new recruits Carlu Sadie, Rohan Janse van Rensburg and Lionel Cronje.
A fourth new face, Sadie’s former teammate at the Lions, is Vincent Tshituka, though he is still untangling himself from some red tape at Ellis Park, but should not be too much longer.
Sadie is a beast of a prop and a shrewd buy for the Sharks, given that they will pretty much be without their Springboks for the rest of the year — and that means no Thomas du Toit and Ox Nche, not to mention Siya Kolisi, Bongi Mbonambi, Eben Etzebeth and backs Lukhanyo Am, Makazole Mapimpi and probably also Aphelele Fassi.
All of the South African teams will be without their Boks for the initial stages of the URC — as was the case last year — because the Rugby Championship and the November tour take place at the same time as the URC.
Sadie will thus have a vital role to play — and if he reproduces the form he displayed for the Lions in this competition, the Sharks will be on the front foot. There were games in the last URC where Sadie destroyed the opposition scrum, and he regularly won scrum penalties for the Lions.
The stocky 25-year-old weighs in at just under 140kg. He is naturally strong, with huge thighs, and being shorter enables him to get under props and annihilate them.
Janse van Rensburg is another former Lion recruited by the Sharks to fill a big hole. The 27-year-old is closer to the dimensions of Andre Esterhuizen than any of the candidates used to replace him since he left for London Harlequins in April 2020.
The powerful Van Rensburg is 109kg and 1.85m tall and was a key component of the successful Lions team under Johan Ackermann, and was capped once for the Springboks, in 2016. He left the Lions for Manchester, and between 2018 and last year he amassed 73 caps for the Sale Sharks.
The much-travelled Cronje returns to Durban for a third stint at the Sharks and the 33-year-old aims to play out his career at the Shark Tank.
The flyhalf played for the Sharks in 2014 and 2015, before heading to Japan. Last year he returned on loan for the Currie Cup. He played well and the Sharks wanted to hang on to him, but he had to complete his commitments at Toyota Verblitz and now is back for good.
IOL Sport