Ken Borland

Sharks coach Gary Gold said he hoped his team’s courageous effort against the Lions in Johannesburg at the weekend would give them some respite from their critics.

Although the Sharks went down 23-21 to the Lions to suffer their fifth defeat in nine matches, they pushed the in-form home side all the way and, had flyhalf Fred Zeilinga succeeded with an angled, long-range penalty after the hooter, they would have claimed a morale-boosting victory.

“Even our biggest critics want to know that there is some fight in this team and, after the week we’ve had, the guys really put their hands up, stuck in it for the full duration and were in a position to win it at the end. They showed huge character to keep out wave after wave of attack on our own line and it showed that we’re not just going to roll over and think our season is over,” Gold said.

On top of all the disruptions in the last week, the Sharks then had to contend with the late withdrawal of eighthman Ryan Kankowski with a knee injury and yet another yellow card, centre Andre Esterhuizen being sent to the sin bin for a late tackle, which Gold felt was a contentious call.

“The yellow card was unbelievably frustrating and the wrong call. Every decision should be taken on its own merits and I’m still wondering if the tackle was even late, so it definitely shouldn’t have been a yellow card. The sanction for a late tackle is a penalty and there was no malice involved, it wasn’t around the neck or anything,” Gold fumed.

The key period of the game was the 10 minutes either side of half-time when the Lions scored three times to turn a 14-6 deficit into a 25-14 lead, and Gold was at a loss to explain how it happened.

“We’ll have to have a look at that, we let it slip a bit there. We took a knock in confidence with that try just before halftime, but we had a constructive chat in the break, the talk was all positive and intelligent,” Gold said.

“But look at where we are in the competition, we’re just over halfway and we’re just four points behind the conference leaders, and I’m excited that this bunch of players can still get things right. The South African pool is very tight and just four points separates the top four teams.”

With several second-string choices playing their guts out against the Lions, it will be interesting to see who Gold recalls from the contingent of Springbok players that were left out, because this weekend’s game is against the conference-leading Bulls in Durban.

The return of powerhouse flank Willem Alberts to the Sharks team is just the tonic they need in this time of crisis, but coach Gary Gold faces a difficult decision when it comes to either starting the Springbok against the Lions at Ellis Park on Saturday or bringing him on off the bench.

Alberts has been battling hamstring injuries since last year and has played just one SuperRugby match this season, against the Stormers in Cape Town a month ago, where he re-injured the tendon.

But he’s been back at training this week and Gold will need to decide whether to start with the battering ram and see just how much time they can get out of him, or bring him off the bench and hope he can make an impact and last for 20 minutes or so.

Alberts is the sort of player who can inspire a team and the 30-year-old was positive that the Sharks can turn their fortunes around, while acknowledging that things have not gone according to plan thus far.

“It’s been another new beginning for us this season with a new coaching staff, plus injuries or suspensions making players unavailable. But we still believe that we are in contention and we are working hard for each other. It was obviously a hiccup last week, but luckily in rugby, the next week brings a new chance and we have to take it and move forward,” Alberts said.

The former Lions player is a senior figure at the Sharks and he brushed off suggestions that it was the older players to blame for the KwaZulu-Natalians’ implosion in recent weeks.

“The younger players need to raise their level of play, they have to step up and show that they are up for big rugby. But we were all young players at some stage and we support them, we try our best to help them do their best. There’s a great environment here at the Sharks, with young and old players and we just want to go forward as a team,” Alberts said.

A couple of those older players –props Jannie du Plessis and Tendai Mtawarira – have played for four weeks in a row now and, in terms of the agreement with Springbok management, they will need to be rested either this weekend or the next.

Given that the Sharks face the Bulls in Durban next week, Gold may well decide to rest them this week ahead of that must-win home match.

The emotions were running high at Loftus Versfeld after the Bulls were mauled by the Lions last weekend, so much so that coach Nollis Marais could not see the silver lining which their conquerors’ own recent experiences provides them.

The Lions suffered a similarly dispiriting defeat at home a month ago when they were hammered 50-17 by the Hurricanes; they rebounded spectacularly though and now top the South Africa Conference and are second on the overall log.

All is not lost either for the Bulls, who are four points behind the faltering Stormers and three behind the Sharks in the hunt for the other two local qualification places.

“It’s best not to say anything to the players straight after the game because emotions are still running high and there’s no silver lining. There was a good crowd behind us but we did not put in a good performance, so now we have to bounce back.

“We’re now working on permutations, which is always bad, but we have to get back on the right track. There’s still a lot to play for, we are down but not out … The Hurricanes also gave the Lions a beating a few weeks ago,” the dejected Marais said.

In a way, the fortnight’s break that the Bulls will now have has come at a good time, preventing them from harping on about one of their worst displays of the season and a humiliating defeat at their home fortress.

The Bulls have to hop on a plane to Argentina when the competition resumes at the beginning of July to take on the Jaguares, before hosting the Sunwolves and then finishing their campaign with a potentially tricky visit to the Cheetahs in Bloemfontein.

“We were short against the Lions, but sometimes it’s good to have setbacks, you learn from them. Not getting it too easy maybe makes the players work harder,” Marais said.