Durban — IT was only a few months ago, in April to be exact, that the Dragons were slayed 51-3 at Hollywoodbets Kings Park but the Welshmen will fancy their chances of revenge on Saturday when they host the Sharks just a week after their giant-killing performance against Munster.
The Irish giants were expected to beat the Dragons comfortably at Rodney Parade but clearly there has been some hard work done in the Welsh valleys in the off-season because all four Welsh teams have been much improved in the two rounds of the new United Rugby Championship (URC) season.
That 23-17 win over Munster ended a six-game losing run in the URC for the Dragons, who had a miserable time of it last season, finishing 15th out of the 16 teams, with just two wins in 18 starts, while they lost all four games against South African opposition.
The only team below the Dragons was Zebre, who gave the Sharks a second-half heart attack last week. The Durbanites were flying at half-time and then went into cruise mode altogether as the Italians came storming back, and the Sharks did well, in the end, to hang on for a 42-37 win.
Naturally, coach Sean Everitt was thrilled at the first 40 but unamused by the second.
“Obviously we are happy with the win — the guys did really well to get the five points away from home in our first fixture,” Everitt said.
“The first half was very pleasing for us, there was some fantastic rugby played and we take a lot of positives from that, but unfortunately the second half was a different story.”
No doubt about that and the most annoying part was the Sharks had been given a warning regarding Zebre’s fighting spirit when in the first round they watched Leinster almost lose to Zebre, with the Irish falling asleep in the second half.
“The week before we had seen how Zebre came back in the second half against Leinster, but we did not learn the lesson — we went a bit off the plan in our execution and in our kicking games, and defensively, and conceded seven penalties in the second half, which is unacceptable.
“But our mistakes are fixable and we are just happy that we got the tour off to a good start,” Everitt said. “We will take this win but we know we have a lot to work on.”
The Sharks lost only one match to the four Welsh teams in the last URC — a 23-17 defeat to Cardiff at the Arms Park last October — and they will have to improve significantly on last week’s second-half performance if they are going to keep it that way.
IOL Sport