The Sharks face the Bulls and Leicester take on London Irish: there’s plenty to be gleaned for both the Lions and Leinster

THIS WEEKEND is our opportunity to get out the video and start analysing. Have you ever wondered how rugby analysts such as Ireland’s Mervyn Murphy and co occupy themselves in the dark recesses of the stadium?

He and his ilk spend hours poring over every aspect of the opposition weeks in advance of every fixture. Then he analyses the referee, before finally turning the computer on his own team. If ever there was an opportunity to mimic Murphy for some serious nerding, it is this weekend.

South Africa’s stars will be togging out when the Sharks face the Bulls in Durban on Saturday. For those of you engrossed in all things European, the Bulls happen to have Victor Matfield and Bakkies Botha in the secondrow and none other than Bryan Habana in the backline. But crucially, Fourie du Preez has recovered from his calf injury and starts at scrumhalf.

That’s at least four certainties for the opening Test against the Lions. For me, du Preez is crucial to the South African threat. So make sure to take time out to tune into the Super 14 fixture on Saturday and gain an early insight into what the Lions will be facing next month.

Saturday will be an early indicator of the ferocity of the Springboks’ game. The derby is going to be a very physical encounter and I’m looking forward to seeing the du Plessis brothers in the frontrow. And once again Bismarck du Plessis has managed to keep fellow hooker John Smit, South Africa’s record-breaking captain, on the bench.

What frontrow will Springbok coach Peter de Villiers select?

There’s no doubt this Saturday is the Springbok final trial, not to mention having a major influence on the destination of the Super 14 honours.

Many of the players on show will be familiar to the Connacht players. Way back in 2007, before South Africa’s world cup triumph, Connacht entertained many of the players on show this weekend. And once again most of those players will be togging out against the Lions.

Meanwhile, the Leinster Lions will be togging out in front of a very different group next week in Edinburgh, which makes tomorrow’s English Premiership final so intriguing. Therefore you’ll need to devote all day Saturday to nerding.

Leicester will start as clear favourites, but if London Irish can gain anything approaching 50 per cent of possession they have a great chance. This will be interesting for Leinster next week.

Unfortunately London Irish have a very different philosophy to Leinster, not to mention different strengths. But keep an eye on London Irish’s Samoan centre Seilala Mapusua, who was voted English Players’ Player of the Year. And no doubt Mike Catt, at 37, will get Mapusua running hard at the heart of Leicester.

Obviously it’s the frontrow where Leicester, through Martin Castrogiovanni and co, will try to dominate. Since 1980, the clubs have met 35 times and, as you may have guessed, Leicester have dominated by winning 28 of them.

Like always I’ll be backing the underdog, this week in London and next week in Edinburgh. Of course there are many reasons for this, but for Bob Casey I will be shouting loudest. There won’t be too many Irish filling the jersey on Saturday, but what an achievement for him to lead out London Irish toe to toe with Geordan Murphy.

Keep an eye out for his GAA-like gesturing, flailing arms in an attempt to indicate that a perfectly sound penalty kick in fact sailed wide.

And so to the laws of the game, where the IRB has spoken. The ELVs as we know them are over and with them, Law 17 is gone. The most controversial of all the ELVs has been the refereeing of the maul, particularly in the Northern Hemisphere, where weather conditions have dictated the advantage of the maul. So from May 23rd internationals can no longer pull down the maul.

This is a good decision, but unfortunately it requires more tweaking. The maul has been an integral part of our game for generations.

It evolved primarily because our players, thankfully, are all creatures great and small. While the fancy boys are faffing about running double-skip-wrap- arounds, the rest of us would spend hours creating the ultimate lineout maul or, more painfully, defending the opposition’s. The primary reason for the ELV in the first place was to negate the unfair advantage earned from a successful lineout that could immediately become impossible to defend.

The maul must stay, as it’s an outstanding skill, but the defending team must have a reasonable chance of getting the ball back. Therefore the ball must be prevented from moving all the way back to the tail. Once the ball moves out of harm’s way it’s a fait accompli.

I can’t let the week pass without sympathising with Alan Quinlan and the terrible price he has had to pay from Croke Park. It’s a sad end to his ever evolving season, when, as time and again we’ve assumed it was over, he has managed to come back stronger than ever.

Unfortunately his biological rugby clock is ticking, but I hope he bounces back. That said, once the governing body of our very physical game got involved they had a duty of care to the thousands of players from the age of six to 60 all over the world to ensure that zero tolerance exists for anything approaching contact with the face.

Did he deserve 16 weeks? Certainly not. But then, if Leo Cullen was your son, what would you want?