With the South African leg of the Vodacom United Rugby Championship scheduled for next week, the Sharks, Stormers and Vodacom Bulls are all in position to make a run at playoff places.
The top-eight teams on the table after 18 rounds of matches will qualify for the URC playoffs. Teams will be seeded from one to eight and will receive home advantage according to their seeding, meaning the top-four sides will host the next four teams in the quarter-finals.
After claiming a late four-try bonus point in their win over Benetton, the Sharks find themselves in eighth place, level on 26 points with seventh-placed Ospreys and only separated by the number of wins.
Sean Everitt’s side was inconsistent during the local derby phase of the competition, beating the Lions in Johannesburg, but then drawing at home and losing away to the Stormers. However, their latest result, combined with a rare win over the Bulls at Loftus Versfeld, has pushed them to the top of the South African pile.
The Sharks are closely followed on the table by the Stormers (ninth) and Bulls (10th), respectively.
The Stormers came through the local derbies unbeaten, but missed out on the opportunity to climb into the top six of the tournament after suffering a hard-fought loss to Connacht on a muddy pitch in Galway.
Meanwhile, the Bulls scored six tries in a comfortable bonus-point win over current wooden-spoonists Zebre in Parma, leaving just three points between themselves and the Sharks.
Overall, there are just five points separating the Bulls from sixth-placed Connacht. This makes for an intriguing table setter for the looming SA leg of the tournament, with the four local franchises finally set to host overseas teams in what is effectively the final phase of the season before the playoffs.
If the Stormers, Bulls and Sharks are all able to make home advantage count, all three teams could finish in the top eight of the tournament and progress to the playoffs.
Unfortunately, the Lions remain cut adrift from their SA rivals. Despite a brave performance in Dublin against Irish giants Leinster, they went down 21-13. The result has left Ivan van Rooyen’s team third from bottom, with a 14-point gap to make up on the Sharks.
Remaining URC fixtures for SA teams:
SHARKS: Scarlets (h), Zebre (h), Edinburgh (h), Dragons (h), Lions (h), Leinster (h), Connacht (h), Ulster (a)
STORMERS: Zebre (h), Cardiff (h), Ulster (h), Ospreys (h), Bulls(h), Glasgow (h), Leinster (h), Scarlets (a)
BULLS: Munster (h), Scarlets (h), Dragons (h), Ulster (h), Stormers (a), Benetton (h), Glasgow (h), Ospreys (a)
LIONS: Cardiff (h), Munster (h), Ospreys (h), Edinburgh (h), Sharks (a), Connacht (h), Benetton (h), Dragons (a).
Photo: Luca Sighniolfi/INPHO/Shutterstock/BackpagePix
