WELLINGTON - New team or not, the Sharks are looking for points when the Super 12 rugby competition starts at Wellington's WestpacTrust Stadium on Friday night.
Captain Wayne Fyvie is cautiously optimistic that enough work has been done, and the players are ready, to start the competition successfully.
The new-look Sharks, without veteran coach Ian McIntosh and a bundle of top players retired or in Europe, flew in from Sydney yesterday still trying to brush off the effects of jet lag from their Friday flight from South Africa. They were training at Petone within three hours of arriving.
Only former Springbok hooker Chris Roussouw did not take a full part in training. If he does not play, Mornay Visser is the likely replacement, with Ollie le Roux and Brent Moyle completing the front row.
Former Cats Albert van den Berg and Philip Smit locked the scrum yesterday, with another Cats acquisition, A. J. Venter at No 8, and Fyvie and Charl van Rensburg on the flanks.
It's a big pack, boosted by heavy outside recruitment, with Fyvie the flier from the back of the lineout.
His captaincy will be judged against that of the man he replaced, Springbok great Gary Teichmann, but Fyvie is not fazed by the responsibility.
"What I'm looking at is getting the team to a level of playing good rugby. And in terms of getting points, we obviously want to get the maximum we can," he said.
"But at the same time we are a new side. For us, and for me in particular, the task is to build a team as each game goes on so that after the fifth and sixth game we can start looking at what we need for semifinal spots."
Fyvie captained the Sharks two or three years ago when Teichmann was doing likewise with the Springboks, and did the job virtually fulltime last season when Teichmann was injured.
Gone from the team are such famous names as Henry Honiball, Teichmann and Andre Joubert - and coach McIntosh, of course.
Injured is South Africa's most-capped test player, Mark Andrews. It all puts a lot of pressure on Fyvie, who has three tests for the Boks but a long time ago, in 1996.
"It is the end of an era. We've lost a lot of experience, because the guys have been around for a long time.
"But you can't go on for ever ... the guys that we've lost are big boots to fill, but we have to try to build the new thing as quickly as we can.
That doesn't mean the ideas and basic grounding by McIntosh have been cast aside. New coach Hugh Reece-Edwards has had three years as McIntosh's deputy.
"Reece has been involved for some time with Mac, and obviously having been there, a lot of the stuff has come through with him. But there are a lot of new things as well," Fyvie said.
"Mac was a great coach. It's sad to lose people like him, Gary and Henry, but it gives opportunities for new people."
Fyvie refuses to heed the Hurricanes' moderate pre-season form.
"They played top opposition, and I think those games could have gone either way, so I'm not reading anything into that at all."
One thing Fyvie is firm on - that no Australian side should win the Super 12.
"I think they've got enough at present. I think it's time someone else won something."
- NZPA
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