Shark attack in first half turns out to be winner
● The Sharks withstood a determined second-half showing from the Blues to record their second win of the Super Rugby season. The game of two halves was low on entertainment but the Sharks got their bonus point win and that’s what mattered.
The Sharks could have — and should have — had more points to show for their first-half dominance.
They had the lion’s share of the territory and possession but the Blues manned up on defence.
While the Sharks deserved to rumble over in the 16th minute through Akker van der Merwe from a rolling maul, the visitors shunted the Sharks from that perspective.
At times the Sharks lacked the requisite patience to convert their chances into points when they were in the Blues’ 22 but Leon McDonald’s charges showed a fair bit of commitment on defence.
However, they were powerless to prevent the Sharks from scoring two more first-half tries, by Aphelele Fassi and Robert du Preez.
Fassi’s eighth-minute touchdown was a case of a bad lineout where the Sharks took advantage. Even then, Makazole Mapimpi had to chip, collect and pass for the fivepointer to be realised.
Du Preez had the simple job of exploiting a gap from close in to crash over in the 37th minute after sustained lineout pressure on the Blues.
Curwin Bosch, who came on as a 30thminute replacement for S’bu Nkosi, had two chances in the 43rd and 47th minutes to put the Sharks away. His first pass didn’t get to Mapimpi while Andre Esterhuizen knocked on the second with the tryline beckoning.
The Blues asked questions in the second half and if Dalton Papalii hadn’t held back Daniel du Preez from a scrum, Otere Black’s 56th-minute try would have stood.
The Blues scored through Taniela Tele’a six minutes later. While the Sharks were down to 14 men late in the game, Bosch scored a 78th minute try to seal the result.