Sharks scrape home against Lions; here’s what coach Sean Everitt was pleased with & unhappy with
The Sharks scraped home with a 19-16 win over the Lions in the opening Super Rugby Unlocked match at Kings Park in Durban at the weekend. It was certainly a mixed performance by the pacesetters earlier this year, as relieved coach Sean Everitt admitted afterwards when he said “we were fortunate to survive”.
What Everitt was unhappy with –
The error count of his team: “We made quite a few mistakes, our mistakes let us down, and we were pretty much responsible for our own demise. It was not a polished performance and getting that cohesion takes time. We let it slip on the scoreboard because of our own mistakes and we put ourselves under pressure, at the end of both halves we were really under the pump.”
The set-pieces: “We need to sort our set-pieces out and I wasn’t happy with the lineout. But this pack have only played 40 minutes together at Loftus and it was never going to be a complete performance. Dylan Richardson is a young hooker who is transitioning from loose forward, but he’s a great rugby player, a future Springbok in my mind, so I’m not worried, we will sort it out.”
The number of turnovers when they were on attack: “The attacking breakdown is all about reaction and ball-placement otherwise there’s always the risk of losing the ball on the ground, and I thought Jaco Kriel was outstanding for the Lions. We’ve got to work harder on that dynamic, the referees have said they’re going to reward the jackal and AJ Jacobs certainly did.”
What Everitt was happy with –
The rugby they played in the first quarter: “I asked for a fast start, especially after the slow start to the Bulls game two weeks ago, and I was happy with that, we could have scored a couple more tries. We played some amazing rugby in the first 20 minutes, our contestable kicks – we had some really good ones, similar to in Super Rugby – and defence were outstanding.”
The defence: “The defence shows this team works for each other and it was a team effort to get the result despite not playing as well as we would have liked. We were fortunate to survive, but we finished strongly. We had some massive turnovers, this team lives for those and they work really hard on that. The Lions came with a power game and we did really well to keep them out, we stopped their momentum and did very well to not give them the gain-line.