Sharks to fight on despite setbacks
ALTHOUGH the Sharks produced a vastly improved performance against the log-leading Hurricanes on Saturday, it wasn’t enough to end a now five-match losing streak, with the Durban side having left New Zealand without a single log point to show for their efforts.
This Saturday, the Sharks will take on the Waratahs in Sydney, and they will know that it’s not going to get any easier.
The Sharks were extremely unlucky not to come away with what would have been a massive upset victory in Wellington, but the old issue of missed tackles once again haunted them, while fortune certainly wasn’t on their side.
Several on-field injuries served to disrupt the team’s cohesion, while a number of 50-50 refereeing decisions went against the Sharks, which left director of rugby Gary Gold pondering what could have been.
“Obviously we’re massively disappointed with the result,” he said. “I think after a very poor perform- ance against the Highlanders, the guys worked extraordinarily hard during the course of the week and I was impressed by the commitment from the players and management in terms of getting the situation sorted out.
“I think we saw a huge amount of commitment from the players. We crossed the Hurricanes tryline four times, but bizarrely one of the tries wasn’t allowed at a critical time of the game.”
Gold was referring to the TMO decision to disallow the Sharks a try from a line-out drive midway through the second half.
“I thought we had driven well for very little reward before that,” Gold admitted. “They had conceded a couple of penalties before half time from the drives. I think they were very close to conceding a yellow card at that stage. We unleashed what I would deem a textbook quality drive, which led to an emphatic try, but that was then referred to the TMO and disallowed. We’re not really in a position to talk about referees decisions, but it was a huge momentum shift.”
However, Gold also emphasised that they couldn’t use some dubious decision as an excuse.
“There is a still a lot of room for improvement – there were certain defensive errors that we have to put our hands up and admit weren’t good enough. By and large, against the top team in the competition, it was a good performance. As I said, to cross the line four times, and create a couple of other opportunities, it was a good effort.
“We’re just disappointed we didn’t convert those chances, but this performance did seem like progress in the right direction. Not only are we disappointed to not get a win and a bonus point, we’re very disappointed to not come away with any points at all, especially considering the huge amount of effort all the players put in.”
The Sharks do have a number of injuries to assess now, with Bismarck du Plessis taking a knock to the knee, while captain Marco Wentzel suffered a rib injury, with a couple of other players also suffering concussion.
“It’s just been incredibly disruptive (with regular injuries) and it seems to be an on-going phenomenon. That’s the way the game goes, sometimes you can go six or seven games without picking up an injury, but unfortunately for us, we don’t seem to go a game without picking one up,” Gold lamented.
“Nevertheless, there is a huge amount of pride and character I thought we displayed, and we’re very positive about the future, particularly with the youngsters getting an opportunity to put their hands up. I’m very proud of the guys.”