Durban - While it was not exactly lightning striking twice at the Shark Tank last week, it was torrential rain on Wednesday night and then on Saturday that exposed frailties at the Sharks as they sunk to despairing Curre Cup and United Rugby Championship defeats.
Indeed it was a deeply dissatisfying week at Hollywoodbets Kings Park for the Sharks when first the Cheetahs reigned supreme in the rain and then Edinburgh gave the United Rugby Championship incarnation of the Sharks a lesson in taking opportunities in the wet.
In both of the defeats, a glaring issue was the inability of the flyhalves to impose themselves on the games, with Tito Bonilla and Curwin Bosch respectively producing performances they will quickly want to forget.
This week the Sharks host the Dragons and it will be a surprise if Boeta Chamberlain —the third of the Sharks’ three flyhalves — is not installed at 10.
It could have been primarily Bosch who Sean Everitt had in mind when he commented after the 21-5 loss: “There were a lot of individual errors out there. We got territory advantage, we got good field position, but at times we did not kick our penalties and at times we missed touch, and those are things we need to execute well to put the opposition under pressure.”
By contrast, Edinburgh’s Scotland international flyhalf, Blair Kinghorn, ran his team’s game smoothly, scoring two tries and looking dangerous most times he took the ball. Kinghorn made the most of the reasonably limited possession his team received in steering Edinburgh to the only win European teams have registered in 12 matches played in South Africa since their teams came here three weeks ago.
“I can’t blame the weather for the loss,” Everitt said, to his credit. “Edinburgh had three opportunities to score and they took all three, we did not. In these games against top teams, you need to take every opportunity and you certainly need to take the points when they are on offer. It is extremely frustrating when you create opportunities and you can’t finish.
Everitt also praised Edinburgh for their solid defence.
“Edinburgh kept us out defensively. We got our maul going and got momentum at times but we could not get over the line, so credit to them for that.
“I think our plan worked quite well, we had patience in our kicking game although at times we over-cooked our box kicks which gave them space to counter-attack — a good example of that was the build-up to the try scored by Boffelli.
“If you go back to Super Rugby if you were off your game on your day you got a big hiding, so for us, it is about being more accurate in our execution. We got ourselves into good positions on the field but were not clinical enough to finish off while Edinburgh did well to keep us out.”
The Sharks have a short week in which to sort themselves out. They play the Dragons, who were thumped by the Bulls at the weekend, at 7.30pm on Friday night.
IOL Sport