Sharks will be back next year

It was meant to be the season of our lives. I can still remember the day vividly. The weather was glorious as the sun kissed every corner of Absa Stadium.

May 19, 2007 was meant to be a day etched in the memory banks of every Sharks supporter.

It was the day the Super 14 trophy found a home in South Africa for the first time and that place was Durban.

The atmosphere was cinematic and the roar for the Sharks when they took to the field rocked the very foundations of the old Kings Park.

With the scene set for an absorbing game, the rugby on display was world class as the two giants of domestic rugby collided.

The Bulls have a long and proud legacy in South African rugby, while the Sharks have pioneered the sport and redefined it in the professional era. It was a fitting bout, which was poetically brutal.

Momentum

The momentum continually swung and with the clock winding down, the crowd was in raptures as the Sharks hit a 19-13 lead.

The game seemed won and nobody noticed when Frans Steyn shanked a relatively easy conversion from the right of the posts.

It was an omen we should all have noted.

But, I was too busy hugging fellow scribes Mike Greenaway and Telford Vice to have noticed.

Even Dick Muir and John Plumtree sitting behind us in the coaches' booth were embracing joyfully, but all that elation was turned into pain when Bryan Habana charged down the touchline and cut infield to score near the uprights.

The following conversion was a formality for Derick Hougaard and the home supporters were stunned into paralysis after crashing down from such a high.

How could this be?

Oh, sport can be cruel and I felt sick to the core. Why had the rugby Gods toyed with us?

I guess for the Bulls' loyal fans they would have felt the complete converse and thought they'd watched the greatest game. Perhaps if we all stand back and try to look at the Super 14 final as neutrals we, too, will acknowledge that it was a drama-filled and entertaining spectacle.

Yes, Steve Walsh missed Dannie Rossouw illegally using his hands in the ruck to turnover ball with seconds remaining, but let's be fair to the Kiwi ref, he was unsighted to the Bulls flanker's nefarious activities.

Perhaps if any blame should be apportioned to missing the infringement it should go to the touch judge Lydon Bray, who was on that side of the field.

But, then again, things happen at breakneck speed and the way Rossouw stole possession back at that critical ruck, you'd swear he was jewel thief with his quick hands.

It's interesting isn't it.

Nobody on the east coast can actually bring themselves to talk about the loss.

Having toured the Antipodes with the Sharks and working closely with Muir over the past three years, it's hard not to have wanted the men in black and white to excel.

They tell me the door of the Sharks change room has never been the same since Butch James beat it to a pulp in the aftermath of the loss.

And, who could blame him.

But next year another season beckons.

And while there will be questions surrounding the pedigree of the Sharks squad, after stalwarts like James, John Smit, Percy Montgomery, Albert van den Berg and Johan Ackermann from this year's vintage group move on, don't write off the Sharks franchise's chances just yet.

Lest we forget that Plumtree's youthful provincial out, missing 11 players with the Springboks, reached the Absa Currie Cup semis.

So let's be positive going forward.

What's stopping 2008 from being the year of the Sharks?