Sharks go top of the log

IT will take something special to beat Jake White’s Sharks at home this season, as they proved when they mauled the Lions last night.

There were moments in the second half when it looked like the Lions would fight back, but suffocating forward play and an 80th minute Bismarck du Plessis bonus-point try ended that. The Sharks go top of the combined Super Rugby log with the win.

Paul Jordaan ran in to open the scoring for the Sharks after great work down the left wing by Lwazi Mvovo.

There was something that lit up in the Sharks whenever the ball went wide to Jordaan, then to Lwazi Mvovo, who took it back inside for Jordaan. Their pace, quick thinking and tryline hunger made them deadly on the break.

With those stallions out wide, Frans Steyn — filling in at flyhalf for illness-hit Pat Lambie — could have taken the ball out wide more often than he did.

Maybe in an effort to prove he still had it, Steyn held onto the ball a second longer than he should have and twice spilt the

Before the end of the first half the game had rapidly descended into a scruffy affair

ball when he took defenders on.

However, he launched two penalty kicks from his own half, one from 55m. And once he started slotting everything from the tee, he showed shades of his form from 2007 and the Lions had difficulty shutting him down. But he still has a lot of conditioning work to do to be a threat when running with the ball.

Before the end of the first half, the game had descended into the kind of scruffy affair you’d get in a match between the Cheetahs and the Rebels. All structure was lost.

But in the midst of that, Cobus Reinach came up with one of his opportunistic tries, snatching a loose lineout ball before sidestepping Chrysander Botha and scoring the Sharks’ second try.

With a 14 point lead going into the second half, the Sharks took less risks, asking the Lions to come at them. But with flyhalf Elton Jantjies lacking match fitness, the Lions struggled on attack.

Jantjies tried a chip that was charged down by Willem Alberts, Marcell Coetzee picked up and fed Odwa Ndungane, who went over untouched.

It took a Marnitz Boshoff switch from fullback back to flyhalf, after Jantjies was replaced by JW Jonker, for the Lions to smell the Sharks tryline. After sustained pressure, Lions scrumhalf Faf de Klerk swivelled over the line from close range.

Boshoff then grubbered through for Deon van Rensburg to score the Lions’ second try 12 minutes before the end but it wasn’t enough.