Durban - Sharks boss Marco Masotti is furious that his team’s game against Ulster has been called off because of illness in the ranks of the Irishmen, and he insists the United Rugby Championship award the Sharks the five match points.
The game has been postponed to a date not yet fixed after Ulster told the Sharks at noon on Friday that they could not put a team on the field because of a gastroenteritis outbreak, but Masotti says his team must get the points.
In a rant on Twitter, which has now been deleted, Masotti said from New York: “Is this a joke? Must be. Is this a professional sports league? Has this happened in other professional sports leagues? Maybe darts, curling, or pickleball? Just give us the points.”
Masotti signed off with this dripping sarcasm: “#mickeymouse #donaldduck #urclosers”.
This will leave both the URC organisers and Ulster under no illusion that the Sharks are both angry and unconvinced that they could not field a team.
The Sharks were in the starting blocks for what would have been a mouth-watering clash with the second-placed team on the log and, if and when this game is played, they almost certainly won’t have their Boks.
They had all their Springboks on board for Ulster — Eben Etzebeth, Siya Kolisi, et al —and were riding excellent momentum from their strong finish against the Glasgow Warriors last week.
As CEO Ed Coetzee put it: “We were keen to unleash the team we have been building for two years — finally we had virtually all the guys ready and available (a host of Springboks had returned), plus our new director of rugby, Neil Powell, has recently joined us and was building up to this big home game.”
The URC has said it will investigate the most dramatic episode in the URC’s history that also saw the Warriors call off their game against the Lions for the same (tummy bug) reason.
IOL Sport