Stormers stifle Sharks’ hopes of home play-off
THE Stormers had no business getting four log points in Durban last night but they seem to make a habit of doing the impossible when the odds are stacked against them, especially against the Sharks, in the process securing their first win on the road.
In the context of the play-offs, should the Sharks find themselves travelling across the Indian Ocean, they will look back at this game as the one that denied them home comforts. It was a game they should have won but, inexplicably, contrived to be their own worst enemies.
This was a proper burgling job, aided and abetted by ineptitude the Sharks can only produce when playing at home, for it is their second consecutive home defeat.
The first half was littered with misplaced kicks, the Sharks players taking turns in seeking out Kurt Coleman’s channel and the home side’s domination of the scrum.
Coleman only lasted 49 minutes before he came off with a suspected fractured cheekbone after Frans Steyn’s knee collided with the right side of his face. There was also a WWEstyle tackle on Cobus Reinach, which earned Nizaam Carr a yellow card. The Sharks were not cohesive enough to make the most of the advantage.
The Sharks had the better of the Stormers in the collision, so it was only fitting that Cobus Reinach’s try had its roots in a rolling maul.
Usually, stroke-of-half-time tries often knock the stuffing out of the opposition, especially those of the ilk of the Stormers. While the Sharks did most of the play against a Stormers outfit that was content to tackle the black off their jerseys, they were noticeably flat and jaded and it did not get any better. Their two successive wins in New Zealand drained them and they struggled to impose themselves.
Most of the creative spark came from the electric Cheslin Kolbe.
He was at the heart of the Stormers’ only try-scoring opportunity in the 63rd minute but, somehow, Jaco Taute found a way to botch it, taking a pass that was meant for the burly Sailosi Tagicakibau.
That session saw Marcell Coetzee being yellow-carded but the Stormers sensed they had the Sharks frazzled.
Their befuddlement of the Sharks was evident in Steyn missing a penalty in the 69th minute which, in the scheme of things, cost the Sharks the game.
Then Taute stepped up with a drop goal that took the Sharks, and the fans’ voices, with it.