The former Shark with a big target on his back

IN THE SPOTLIGHT: Sharks flyhalf Curwin Bosch's latest admission has placed a big target on former teammate and Lions stand-in captain Marius Louw.

The 27-year-old joined the Lions from the Sharks at the start of the season and has been a vital cog in the Johannesburg side's attack.

The centre has taken over the captain's armband in the absence of Reinhard Nothnagel and has led the team since December.

Louw is set to again lead the Lions when they host the Sharks in a United Rugby Championship Round 14 encounter at Ellis Park on Saturday.

“It is very strange seeing him [Louw] in a different jersey,” Sharks flyhalf Bosch said with a smile, about his close friend.

"We started our careers together here at the Sharks.

“Marius is a flippen great player.

"He is tough, he is hard and you know you going to get a lot of work rate and physicality from him.

“We must really try to stop and minimise his impact and take his space away."

Play-off hopes

The Sharks head to Johannesburg under huge pressure.

The last time the Durban-based team was in action they suffered a humiliating 19-46 loss to the Stormers on February 4.

They conceded six tries and were outplayed in most areas of the park.

The side is currently eighth on the URC table (33 points from 12 games) and will have to bounce back in fine style to keep their play-off hopes alive.

“To our standard, that performance was not good enough. We obviously had an in-depth review of what went wrong," Bosch said.

"I think on the day nothing just went our way, we made a lot of mistakes that we wouldn't usually make.

“And a good team like the Stormers will punish those mistakes and that is exactly what they did. They took their opportunities and we couldn’t get back into the game.

“I think one of the biggest factors that let us down during that game was our discipline. We conceded quite a few penalties and were always on the back foot and could never get momentum.”

Bosch said his team learned a lot from the defeat.

“It is really important that we start well at Ellis Park.

“We haven’t approached this any different to any other game, we are sticking to our process and want to get on the park and perform well.

“Training has gone really well and guys are keen to rectify things this weekend and apply all the learnings from the defeat to the Stormers.”

He added: “We know the Lions is a team that always tries to play a little bit of expansive rugby.

“They are a very good set-piece-based team, scrum is strong, so we have done a little prep on them.

“But our focus is just to try and execute our plan and if we can do that, we will be okay.”

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