Ken Borland

Having staged a stirring comeback to level the scores at 27-27, the Sharks were meant to keep possession and force a penalty in the final stages of their nailbiting United Rugby Championship quarterfinal against the Bulls at Loftus Versfeld, coach Sean Everitt said.

They were also meant to avoid giving the Bulls the ball in their own 22. Sadly for the Sharks, they failed to do both things and the Bulls snatched victory with an 84^th-minute drop goal.

“The team is hurting and extremely disappointed,” a gutted Everitt said. “But I am proud of their effort and character. There were just a couple of soft moments, which were disappointing.

“At the end the result could have gone either way and we could have had a bit more fortune in the last five minutes. The plan was to hold on to the ball, put them under pressure and try to earn a penalty.

“We believed we could win, we showed tremendous character and never gave up. But our execution just needed to be a bit better. Things like that last pass just not going to hand.

“And we spoke about discipline and not giving the Bulls the ball in our 22, which is exactly what we did. They are clinical there and they have the best completion rate inside the 22 in the competition,” Everitt said.

The coach said he believes that if he mends a couple of things before next season, the Sharks can go all the way in 2022/23.

“If you look at where we have improved, the set-piece has come on a lot. But our balance on the field has improved too – now we can use our set-piece and we can score tries.

“We put ourselves in position to score tries today and there is no question about the character, culture or team environment because they showed their pride today.

“We just need to fix the rugby side and we especially need to work on the attacking breakdown. We gave the Bulls field position from there, it was a problem against Ulster and in our two previous games against the Bulls,” Everitt said.

By scoring twice in the final quarter to come back from 13-27 down, the Sharks showed their attack is plenty dangerous when it clicks. Phepsi Buthelezi is developing into a top-class ball-in-hand eighthman to provide the link to a backline in which wing Makazole Mapimpi was a threat throughout.

People should not run pell-mell to the conclusion that this is a poorly-coached Sharks team.

“I suppose if you look at Springboks and World Cup winners then we do have a lot of them and they can be proud of their effort. We played some really good rugby.

“I actually enjoyed watching the game even though my blood pressure was probably through the roof. We got the ball through the hands on a couple of occasions and looked really dangerous.

“Under-performance is a broad topic and rugby has a lot of variables. At times we’ve not played as well as we would have liked, and there are certain aspects of our game that need to be worked on.

“Obviously there are things to improve, and they are all fixable. The team has done exceptionally well and they want to play for the jersey,” Everitt said.

When the going gets tough, this Springbok team says they don’t make excuses, they find solutions. And that attitude was much in evidence in the third Test against the British and Irish Lions in Cape Town at the weekend when, despite not producing anything close to their best rugby, they simply refused to lose, doing what had to be done to secure a nailbiting 19-16 win and clinch the series.

With Rassie Erasmus still facing a misconduct charge from WorldRugby over his video analysis of officiating mistakes in the first Test loss, the churlish will say the director of rugby makes the Springboks’ excuses for them, but only the most biased would not have at least some grudging respect for the sheer determination and heroism this Springbok team has shown.

And speaking of heroes, the feats of wing Cheslin Kolbe and replacement flyhalf Morne Steyn were pulled straight from the pages of superhero comic books.

Kolbe scored the crucial try to overturn a 10-6 deficit, once again unveiling his superpower ability to simply vanish from the grasp of tacklers thanks to those incredibly feet of his.

And then Steyn, who had won the 2009 series with his long-range penalty, came on after 64 minutes, a 37-year-old playing his first Test since 2016. It was certainly a gamble, replacing the Springboks’ general, Handre Pollard, who has enjoyed an outstanding series but things were not going that well with his boot.

Incredibly, history repeated itself 12 years later as Steyn kicked two penalties, including the match-winning one in the 78^th minute, leaving one to wonder who exactly writes his scripts?!

“I had my head between my legs when Morne kicked, I just listened, I did not see it,” Springbok coach Jacques Nienaber admitted. “I’m really happy for him, it’s a fairytale.

“In the last five weeks, everybody had challenges, a lot of us got Covid and we lost a whole week of training. But the positive thing about this team is that they have no time for excuses, we knew we had to move on and make another plan. Those were the cards we were dealt with, they said ‘unfortunately that’s where we are, we have to move on and find a solution’,” Nienaber added.

For captain Siya Kolisi, the overriding emption was great pride in the team he has led magnificently.

“I honestly can’t explain in words what it means to us as a group to win the series. Coming from isolation, we all agreed that we would never make excuses, that’s not what South Africans are made of. When you step out on to the field, you agree that you are ready to play. That’s what I love about this team, we don’t make excuses, we find solutions,” Kolisi said.

Lock Eben Etzebeth and Steyn were the star players put up by the Springboks for media duties after the gripping match, and it turned out a friendly chat between the two at the start of the day had almost been prophetic.

“We expected it to be a close contest and we always knew that the Lions would come with a massive effort. I had breakfast with Morne and I said that it might come down to him winning the series again with a kick. He said he hoped we were a bit further ahead if he came on.

“It doesn’t matter how we won, just to get the victory is massive for us. We were able to get over the final hurdle. Apart from Morne, the rest of us knew we only have one chance to win a Lions series and we knew it was our last 80 minutes to do it. What happened is absolutely unbelievable and all credit to him,” Etzebeth, a talismanic figure in the Springbok pack all series, said.

“Just to be part of this series 12 years later was amazing and then to get on the field and then to have that kick. It was in a similar position to 2009, just a bit closer for these old legs, 54 metres then and this one was about 35 metres. For a kicker, these special occasions are why you put in all the hard work. You always dream of making a kick to win a series or a championship. All glory to God for giving me the chance to do it again.

“But credit to the whole team for building up to that moment on the field, their work softened them up. It was not our best performance but it doesn’t matter how you win. And thanks to Eben for that pep talk at breakfast!” Steyn said.

Thomas Aiken has been watching the Nedbank Golf Challenge at Sun City since he was seven years old and now he will finally be playing in the event following his nailbiting triumph in the Sunshine Tour’s Order of Merit in the final event, the South African Open, at Glendower Golf Club at the weekend.

Aiken faced a terrifying two-putt from about 90 feet on the last hole for par to ensure a top-10 finish in the SA Open and enough of a payday to overtake Danie van Tonder in the final Order of Merit, and the 31-year-old left himself with a knee-wobbling 10-footer, which he curled into the hole.

The three-time winner on the European Tour eventually finished in a six-way tie for fifth and earned R430 000, while Van Tonder shot a 75 in the final round to finish tied-55^th and made R52 500. That meant Aiken beat Van Tonder to first place on the Order of Merit by just over R157 000, but if he had bogeyed the last hole, that one stroke would have left him R1300 behind his young compatriot.

“I didn’t want to know the permutations but I knew a top-10 finish may be enough, so I was aiming top-five to make sure. With three holes to play, I knew I was tied eighth or ninth, so I said to myself that the worse-case scenario was three pars.

“I made good putts on 16 and 17, but then a really poor iron shot on 18, because I was trying to be too safe. I was far enough from the hole that I couldn’t see it and then my second putt was a good 10 feet away. It was maybe worse than having a putt to win a tournament, but I managed to make one of my best putts ever,” Aiken said.

“Winning the Order of Merit is something I’ve been looking forward to since I started playing on the Sunshine Tour in 2002. I’ve been close before and it’s nice to finally get it under the belt. Winning the Sid Brews Trophy is very nice and winning the money-list is obviously a feat because this is one of the five main tours in the world. But it also comes with substantial perks that can make your career – I’m into the British Open, the Memorial, three World Golf Championship events and the Nedbank Golf Challenge, which I’ve dreamed about playing in since I was a kid in the early 90s,” the born-and-bred Johannesburger said.

Winning the Sunshine Tour Order of Merit means Aiken, who has a full card on the European Tour, must have sacrificed to so strongly support his local tour and he said it was because he loves the grand old courses that so many of the co-sanctioned events are played on.

Glendower is certainly one of those and Royal Johannesburg and Kensington, where he will tee it up in the Joburg Open from February 26, is too, but he will sadly miss out on the Africa Open at the old-style East London Golf Club because of his qualification for the WGC Cadillac Championship at the Blue Monster in Florida at the same time.

When Van Tonder shot 78 in the first round at Glendower, his Order of Merit hopes seem to have been dashed, but he birdied his last three holes in the second round to make the cut and Aiken said this typified the gutsy youngster.

“Danie has played extremely well all year, there are few 23-year-olds that can be that consistent all year and he’s had multiple wins. He’s a very tenacious young man  and he has the fiery spirit to make it, he grinds through when the chips are down, he has BMT – like he showed when birdieing the last three holes to make the cut,” Aiken said.