Johannesburg - In July last year, Aphelele Fassi was dropped from the Springboks after defensive failures in the historic loss to Wales in Bloemfontein, and he returned to Durban under no illusions as to what Rassie Erasmus and Jacques Nienaber wanted him to work on.
They would have emphasised that as good as his attacking play undoubtedly is, they would not pick him until he had addressed the weakness in his game.
And when he and Thaakir Abrahams had glaring missed tackles during the Sharks’ heavy defeat to Leinster last October in Dublin, SuperSport analysts Nick Mallett and Breyton Paulse reiterated that Fassi had to brush up on his tackling because he could not be recalled to the Boks on his attacking finesse alone.
Paulse said: “When I was trying to establish myself in the Springbok team and Nick was the coach, he did not hold back. He told me: ‘Breytie, if you don’t make your tackles, I can’t pick you’.”
Well, observers of Fassi’s Man of the Match performance in the Sharks’ United Rugby Championship (URC) victory over Edinburgh at the weekend will have noted a sharp improvement in his tackling.
There was one miss late in the game but a number of aggressive tackles before that, and Erasmus and Nienaber would have noted that the Sharks’ coaching staff have done wonders in fixing the 25-year-old’s technique.
Fassi’s problem was that at 1.89m, he went into the tackle too high and was often handed off, but he is now dropping his shoulder and successfully downing the ball carrier.
The three-Test Springbok will go into this week’s massive derby with the Stormers in Durban high on confidence and he will be a key player in this URC fixture that will field none of the leading Springboks — the month of February is a rest break for the Boks ahead of September’s World Cup.
ALSO READ: Eben Etzebeth voted as the SA Rugby Player of the Year after superb 2022 season
That means the Sharks will lose the services of key players in last week’s victory in Ox Nche and Thomas du Toit, having already been without Siya Kolisi, Eben Etzebeth, Bongi Mbonambi, Jaden Hendrikse, Makazole Mapimpi and Lukhanyo Am.
The better news for the Durbanites is that former Springbok centre Rohan Janse van Rensburg will be back from compassionate leave following the loss of his father.
‘I’m not the messiah’ says new Australia rugby coach Eddie Jones
But probably the best boost for the Sharks ahead of the coastal derby is a psychological one. The pattern in the URC for the Sharks when they are without their prominent Boks is that they fall apart, but the win in Edinburgh has shown that the second tier of players can, in fact, go the distance.
They will take plenty of confidence and momentum out of the resilience they showed in holding out Edinburgh at the end of that epic encounter.
IOL Sport