Sharks Chief Executive Eduard Coetzee tells an interesting tale of the day he fetched the Sharks’ new scrum coach from King Shaka airport.
It was the second day of the July looting, KZN was ablaze and smoke was billowing into the east coast sky as he nervously drove Akvsenti Giorgadze to Hollywoodbets Kings Park. Coetzee says he was struggling for words as he tried to welcome the coach on what was possibly the darkest day in the history of the province.
“But he not flinch,” Coetzee says. “He said with a smile: ‘I am from Georgia. This is nothing.’”
Yes, they don’t grow shrinking violets in the former Russian state. Joseph Stalin, a tyrant even worse than Hitler, was a Georgian after all.
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And the manner in which the Sharks’ set scrum has been transformed over the last few months is evidence that Giorgadze does not muck about.
It wasn’t that long ago that Coetzee — once a proud scrummager himself for the Sharks and Biarritz — could not bear to watch his team engage at scrum time for fear of calamity.
But the Sharks are now on the right side of the scrum penalties ledger and it was eyebrow-raising to see the white flag flying above the Stormer scrum at the weekend. They were missing Frans Malherbe but even so, Ox Nche, Bongi Mbonambi and Thomas du Toit had a ball.
Speaking of the latter, he was asked last week what had changed for him given that he is in the best form of his life.
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The Tank grinned and said: “I’ve got older and wiser, that’s what has happened.” He is still just 26 but given that he arrived at the Shark Tank straight out of Paarl
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