Newly appointed Sharks Super Rugby coach Robert du Preez will be aiming to improve the fitness of his squad for the 2017 season. Lack of conditioning has been an issue for South African teams as the game has evolved to becoming faster with more ball in play time. With the ball ‘alive’ in some games for over 40 minutes nowadays as opposed to an average of 32 minutes about five years ago‚ the aerobic demands on players has increased. New Zealand teams and the All Blacks‚ in particular‚ have shown the value of superior fitness as they regularly close out matches in the crucial final quarter.That’s when SA teams have tended to fade. Du Preez understands that fixing this one crucial component could reap good rewards. “There’s going to be a big emphasis on strengthening the guys‚ and there’s also a massive focus on their aerobic fitness which we feel has been lacking‚ especially with the way we want to play‚” Du Preez said as his squad gathered for their Super Rugby pre season. “Perhaps there’s been too much emphasis on defence over the last 15 years‚ but players prefer to play with ball in hand and play rugby than tackle the whole time.” The Sharks’ pre-season will be seven weeks long before they break on the 15th of December until the new year and they’ll then return in the first week of January. There was natural excitement at the gathering of players not involved with the Springboks‚ including new signings such as former French fullback Clement Pointrenaud. “We have a bunch of young fullbacks and to a large extent‚ an inexperienced backline if you take Pat Lambie out of it‚” Du Preez said. “Although Pat will be back for Super Rugby‚ Clement is a guy with a huge amount of experience and his first objective is to get into the side‚ to be the first choice fullback‚ and then secondly to mentor the young players. “We’ve had great success with French players in the past and what I really like about him is that he’s spent his entire career with Toulouse where he was born and bred‚ played with one club all his life and played 47 Tests for France. He comes with massive experience‚ he’s married‚ settled and speaks good English; I think he’s going to be great for us.” There have not been wholesale changes as far as playing personnel goes. The core of the squad remains intact and with most of the players now having come through two or three campaigns together. “I believe the Sharks team is in a good position from a depth point of view‚” Du Preez added. “We have some competition for places which is always healthy‚ but we must also understand that it will take time to develop some of the young guys into the players they need to be.” - TMG Digital..