He is hotly rumoured to be joining the Sharks next year but for the time being Jordan Hendrikse remains a match-winning flyhalf for the Lions, even if he has been a bit-part player this season behind Sanele Nohamba.
Nohamba, a former Sharks scrumhalf, has owned the Lions No 10 jersey of late and Hendrikse has been in the background amid speculation that he is to join his Springbok brother Jaden in Durban, but when he got his chance in France last week, he was superb.
The Lions host the northern England club Newcastle in a European Challenge Cup match this week. It remains to be seen if Hendrikse has forced his way ahead of Nohamba but for now, the coaching staff are singing his praises after his Player-of-the-Match performance in the 28-12 away defeat of Perpignan.
Assistant coach Ricardo Loubscher has said Hendrikse’s clever game management played a vital role in the win. The flyhalf kicked 23 of the 28 points, with the balance going to a try scored by wing Rabz Maxwane. “It was great to see Jordan walking away from that game as the man of the match. We know what he can do,” the former Springbok fullback said.
‘Allow him to play’
“The big thing was just to allow him to play, to show what he can do. He controlled the game nicely – we had scoreboard pressure all the time, and he played in the right areas.”
The likely scrumhalf against Newcastle, Morne van den Berg, said the Lions boxed cleverly to get the away win. “If you go to France and expect to throw the ball around and go edge-to-edge, it’s not that easy,” he said. “We went there with the right mindset. We played in their half, isolated them, which forced them to make mistakes, and we took the points.”
Some have said that it was not the prettiest of wins but Loubscher disagrees. “It was winning rugby, not ugly,” he said.
“We had a look at Perpignan, and they are a team that loves to counter-attack, so our game plan against them was to focus on our game management, turn them around, and use our defence against them as a weapon.
“We came away with a good result because we did our homework. The plan to send a different squad worked well for us.”
The Lions squad that remained at home will surely dominate the selection that will host Newcastle at Ellis Park on Saturday.
The English club are currently bottom of the English Premiership but they made a decent fist of their match last week in losing 24-19 at home to leading French club Montpellier.
The strength of the side they will send to Johannesburg is in question but the Lion surely have the (rested) firepower to see them off.