I personally was ecstatic to see my team, the Sharks had done such a great job. So why had two South African teams done so well this year compared to the past. David thinks that the reasons are quite simple, passionate support in each teams home base, virtue of intense physicality, each team was inspired by the performance of individual players, tactical shrewdness, the scrum, outstanding goal kicking, the confidence to rest key players and finally, each team was not afraid to kick for territory.

The fact that the Sharks only conceded 18 tries throughout the whole season just goes to show the intense physicality which can only help to create such awesome defense. David made light of the 2006/2007 rule of crouch, touch, pause, engage and said that we would soon be seeing a new word in the Oxford dictionary of “touchpause” as it had now been decided that there must be no silence between touch and pause. For those of you not present at the talk, David’s prediction was a win for the Sharks and a loss for the Bulls.