Ken Borland

Having seen his team squander a 19-3 lead in the third quarter and be forced to finish all-square on 22-all with the Stormers in their United Rugby Championship match at Kings Park at the weekend, Sharks coach Sean Everitt said it just goes to show how “small mistakes can have big consequences”.

And those consequences snowballed into an absolute train wreck in the last 10 minutes as the Sharks conceded three yellow cards and two penalty tries to leave them with a frustrating draw from a match they had otherwise dominated.

“We did everything right for 70 minutes and threw it away at the end,” Everitt bemoaned. “It shows that small mistakes have big consequences, especially when it comes to discipline.

“Our kicking at poles also wasn’t good enough and we had other opportunities to win the game as well – we could have finished off Grant Williams’ quick tap better and we had opportunities five metres out too.

“The guys are really disappointed and it’s not the result you want from a game you dominated. At 19-3 it then came down to discipline and we put ourselves under the pump; we beat ourselves tonight,” Everitt said.

The one big positive for the Sharks was their outstanding scrummaging display, thanks to the impressive cohesion shown by their all-Springbok front row of Ox Nche, Bongi Mbonambi and Thomas du Toit.

“The fantastic thing was the cohesion that was there,” Everitt said. “The Stormers won four scrum penalties against the Bulls last weekend so we knew we could take nothing for granted.

“But Thomas has been a standout in the URC, he had four great games in the UK, and has clearly learnt a lot in the last couple of years. He’s been outstanding.

“And Ox as well, they are all scrumming together with the Springboks and he has also come a long way. He’s being dominant every game,” Everitt said.

It was an assessment Stormers coach John Dobson was happy to co-sign, giving man of the match Nche glowing praise.

“Ox was absolutely magnificent and has shown incredible growth. He’s got to be one of the best looseheads in the world at the moment,” Dobson said.

On the final penalty try that Aphelele Fassi conceded with a deliberate knock-on, Everitt said his fullback should not have chased the ball so hard.

“Ideally you don’t want to get your hand to the ball unless you’re sure you can catch it. In that situation, you should try force them into the corner so at least the conversion kick is difficult.

“Or hover between the two men so they have to go over you. But with one back short already, it was always going to be difficult to defend,” Everitt acknowledged.

The Lions have always played their rugby in expansive fashion believing that one or two mistakes are affordable if they are scoring plenty of tries themselves. It is a bold approach which Sharks fullback Aphelele Fassi is primed to try and take advantage of when the two sides meet in their United Rugby Championship match at Ellis Park on Saturday.

If Fassi has shown one thing so far in his exciting career it is how lethal he is when it comes to counter-attacking opportunities. And the Springbok who turns 24 on Sunday is just delighted to be getting out into the heat of action again, having last taken the field on November 20 in the Toyota Challenge friendly against the Free State Cheetahs. Before that, his previous game was on August 14 for the Springboks against Argentina.

“The Lions are always full of intensity and we expect a very fast game,” Fassi said on Tuesday. “They love to play with a lot of intensity and keep the ball in play.

“But then a lot of mistakes can also come into play and we need to be able to capitalise on the opportunities we get. If we get five chances, maybe we convert four of them, which would be great.

“But I’m just super-excited to get out there and play. It’s the first time playing in the United Rugby Championship for a lot of us, and for some of us it’s the first time we’re playing a match in a long time.

“The mood in the squad in general is relaxed and eager to play. We’re just delighted to have these fixtures,” Fassi said.

While it seems like the South African teams have been playing each other on an almost monthly basis when the rugby season has been in full swing, Fassi said the Sharks have their eyes set on improving their overseas performances in the new year.

“Phase 1 of the URC was playing overseas and it was quite difficult for us. But we will take those learnings into this year. Our goal is to improve and we look forward to rectifying those mistakes and building from there.

“The things I’ve learnt from the Springboks, obviously I’m trying to bring those to the team and there are a couple of Boks bringing experience from there.

“But we’re also taking knowledge from the URC guys as well, they’ve been telling us how the competition is,” Fassi said.

Bulls coach Jake White said on Friday that he is hopeful that the Captain’s Challenge will be used to reverse obvious mistakes in referee’s decisions and not as a “tactical weapon” in this weekend’s Rainbow Cup matches that see the Sharks travel to Pretoria to take on the Currie Cup champions.

The new law trial gives teams one review each to look at either an incident in the build-up to a try or suspected foul play. A successful challenge means the review is retained, but last weekend the Bulls’ match against the Stormers was regularly interrupted by referrals, which almost seemed to have become tit-for-tat between the two teams after Steven Kitshoff used it against his Bulls counterpart Duane Vermeulen in the opening minutes.

“I think the reviews have not been properly thought out and they probably could be used as a tactical weapon. But the feedback I’ve received from Mark Lawrence [SA Rugby referees head] and SA Rugby is that from now on unless the officials are 100% sure watching the replay in real time then they won’t go back on their decision. We can’t go back and look at every single breakdown because you’ll always find something on slow-mo.

“So I think common sense is coming out now. It took two hours, six minutes for our match against the Stormers to finish and apparently 63 minutes were lost across all the Rainbow Cup matches in the northern and southern hemisphere last weekend because of all the stoppages. That’s one hour of non-activity. We still need to make sure we stamp out head injuries, but some balance is important,” White said on Friday.

The Bulls coach said he was particularly looking forward to the Sharks as adversaries this weekend because they are rated so highly as a team to beat.

“The Sharks are obviously a good side and they have not made many changes, consistency is what they’re going for. They have 10 points from two games and it’s just like when I arrived at Loftus last year – the Sharks were top of the pops from Super Rugby and everyone said they were the team to beat. It’s exactly the same now, they’re a good side and I look forward to playing them again.

“It will be like the Currie Cup final again in the sense that we must win because they have a two-point headstart on us with those two bonus points. Our penalty count is a concern, but then I see that the Sharks have also given away an extraordinary amount of penalties, so it’s obviously just the way the game is being refereed at the moment. But we have the best referee [Jaco Peyper] in South Africa this weekend,” White said.

A gutted Sean Everitt praised his Sharks team for a courageous effort in the Currie Cup final against the Bulls but said a piling up of mistakes in the final stages ultimately cost his side as they lost to a try right at the end of extra time.

The Sharks were leading 19-9 with 15 minutes of regular time remaining, but the Bulls scored a converted try and then a penalty in the 79^th minute to draw level. Replacement flank Arno Botha’s try with 72 seconds of extra time left then gave the Bulls a thrilling 26-19 win and the famous trophy for the first time since 2009.

“It was very disappointing, the players are gutted and I am gutted for them. They played their hearts out for 100 minutes, to be able to push the Bulls for that long, to keep them out for so long, made me really proud. But at the end of the day we let it slip. It wasn’t an isolated moment, just an accumulation of many mistakes. Our kicking accuracy wasn’t where we wanted it to be today.

“And one can debate kicking for touch instead of the poles, making it 22-9 maybe was the right way to go, but the players have a feeling on the field and last week in the semi-final we scored a try from that and no-one questioned that. Today we were a few inches short and then we had a baulk in the lineout when we were planning a trick play,” coach Everitt said after the heartbreaking defeat.

Flyhalf Curwin Bosch also missed five of his 10 kicks at goal, but a large number of those were from a long way out.

“Curwin has done it time and again for us this season, but today he was maybe not up to the standard we are used to. It was not his day, but all the kickers struggled, Morne Steyn and Chris Smith missed kicks too. Curwin is a great rugby player, missed kicks don’t make him a bad player. He has been outstanding for us this season and his game-management was generally excellent today,” Everitt said.

With a large financial injection now on the way from equity partners MVM Holdings, the future looks exciting for the Sharks and Everitt said the 2020/21 season had been a big success despite having no trophies to show for it.

“You can’t base the success of a season on one game and a helluva lot happened in 2020/21. We’ve also given a large number of players opportunities and they have grown and matured, the culture and leadership of the team has also grown, so the season was definitely a success.

“Lukhanyo Am has been a great captain, he has tremendous respect from his peers and the coaching staff do too. Through tough times, Lukhanyo has shown outstanding leadership and I would say we have had a lot of success this season,” Everitt said.