Celebrations in the Sharks camp have been muted, to say the least, after the Kings were duly put to the sword in Port Elizabeth, with coach Gary Gold saying his team will have to improve “remarkably” if they are to beat the impressive Jaguares at Kings Park on Saturday.
The Argentinian side beat the Cheetahs on Friday night in their Super Rugby debut, and come to Durban confident they can emulate the famous Pumas’ win over the Springboks at the same venue in July last year.
“We have to be honest about our performance,” Gold said of the 43-8 victory over a valiant, but severely limited, Eastern Province team.
“We would not have got away with a first-half performance like that against most other teams in the competition.”
The teams were level after 30 minutes, and the Sharks led just 15-8 at half-time.
“We were hard on each other at half-time, as we needed to be because we had not performed to the standards we have set ourselves,” Gold said.
“Our poor discipline kept them in the game. We gave away far too many penalties, and we have to sort that out before this weekend. Offences like ‘not rolling away’ are not acceptable, and the Jaguares will ask a lot more questions of us at the breakdown than the Kings did.”
The Sharks did score six very good tries, and Gold acknowledged that there were “glimpses” of what his team is trying to achieve.
“We want to play attacking rugby, and at times we showed nice balance in our play. I am by and large happy with the result and the five points, but we have to accept that we are far from being a finished product,” Gold said.
The good news is that the Sharks picked up negligible injuries, a fact that cannot be discounted given the rate at which players were felled in the early rounds last year.
Gold said that fullback Willie le Roux had been substituted in the 60th minute because of a stiff back, nothing new for him, and he had been taken off as a precaution.
The final score, 8-43, sees a victorious start to the @CellC Sharks @SuperRugby season. #KINvSHA pic.twitter.com/BkB020RbPb
— The Sharks (@TheSharksZA) February 27, 2016
Wing Lwazi Mvovo has an ankle knock in the other injury concern.
“We need a remarkable improvement this week against a Jaguares team that has its tail up.
“There is clearly a good vibe in their squad,” Gold added.
“They are fit, have a superb attacking game, and they could have beaten the Cheetahs by a bigger score (34-33, after playing nearly 10 minutes with 13 players).
The visitors could well have been down to 12 men had lock Tomas Lavanini been carded for an offence in the 25th minute for which he was later cited.
Lavanini crashed knee-first into William Small-Smith as the Cheetah scored in the corner and, although referee Stuart Berry awarded a penalty, the lock will face a hearing early this week. - The Mercury