Test experience vs URC playoff experience
By beating Munster in the quarter-finals in Durban last weekend, the Sharks became semi-finalists in the URC for the first time - a somewhat bizarre reality for a team that boasts so many Springboks.
When John Plumtree named his side for Saturday's big clash, he had eight World Cup winners to boast in the run-on team, and that is without Eben Etzebeth who will miss the game through injury. The Bulls, by contrast, have two World Cup winners in their starting team but finished the season ahead of the Sharks and are seen as favourites.
Additionally, that injury to Etzebeth comes alongside an injury to Jason Jenkins, which means the Sharks are fielding a reasonably inexperienced second row pairing of Corne Rahl and Emile van Heerden. The Bulls will look to expose the lack of experience at lineout time in Pretoria.
There's also the return from injury of Johan Goosen, a huge boost in the form of a man who may not be a World Cup winner, but is someone who offers plenty of international and domestic experience.
So who would you rather be? In the blue corner you have a team that has experience of these particular knockout games - players who went all the way to last season's final - and a flyhalf who has seen everything the game has to offer.
In the black corner you have proven, grizzled world champions whose job it is to keep the lesser-experienced youngsters calm in such a big game, but have never been this far in this particular tournament. Regardless of result, it's set to be an intriguing showdown between two of South Africa's heavyweights.
Front row battle
There are many interesting head-to-heads in the semi-final, including that of Siya Kolisi coming up against Cameron Hanekom, and the battles between Makazole Mapimpi and Canan Moodie, and Harold Vorster up against Andre Esterhuizen.
But the biggest - in every sense of the world - fight will take place in the front row. The Sharks' starting front row of Ox Nche, Bongi Mbonambi and Vincent Koch is a ferocious one. All three featured in the Springboks' quarter-final and semi-final at the last World Cup, and only Koch missed out on playing in the final against the All Blacks.
The trio were involved in an entirely dominant set-piece display against Munster, but this week they face a far more formidable opponent.
In loosehead prop Jan-Hendrik Wessels and Johan Grobbelaar, the Bulls have two of the hottest front row prospects on the South African market, while in tighthead prop Wilco Louw they have an enormous amount of experience in a position where it really matters.
Louw's performances this season in leading a destructive Bulls pack have been so good that he was unveiled as one of three nominees for the competition's Player of the Year award. A huge feat for someone wearing the number 3 jersey.
In fact, even the opposition have noticed his impact. The Lions' scrum coach said of Louw: "All of us know that the tighthead is the most important guy in the scrum because he gets your alignment right.
"Wilco was the catalyst for getting the Bulls scrum to improve, and then the scrum just kept improving and improving."
Sharks still alive and banging the 'results' drum
The Sharks remain defiant in the face of any criticism of their playing style as they continue to dog it out in each encounter and hold on for the win. Ahead of the Munster quarter-final Etzebeth had said his side had found ways to "grind out" victories where previously they hadn't, even if they were not playing at their full expansive potential.
"We've seen in the past that play-offs can be tight affairs, and winning tight games is something we've done a bit of this year," Etzebeth said earlier this month.
"Last year when we ended up lower on the log, we lost those tight games, but this year we've turned things around and won them."
"We have not played our best rugby, but it feels good that we know we can grind out wins if needed," he added.
The Sharks would go on to win that game by the barest of margins - a place-kicking competition - and Siya Kolisi said afterwards: "At the end of the day, people can say what they want about the way we play, but the results are what matter."
Kolisi and his fellow Springboks know better than most about finding ways to win games; each of their World Cup knockouts were won by a single point.
It's not pretty and they don't care, but can the men from Durban do it all again and squeeze their way past a free-flowing Bulls outfit in front of their fever-pitch fans? Time will tell.
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