Cape Town - "I will wear it squarely on myself because we have a good machine going, and I did a risk-reward thing to give guys a break and put pressure on a group who did three training sessions to come here and play against the URC finalists without their Springboks."
Those are the words of Sharks head coach Joey Mongalo after his side suffered a heavy defeat of 44-5 against Western Province on Saturday in Cape Town.
At one stage, it looked like the visitors were going to leave the Mother City's DHL Stadium with no points after trailing 44-0 in the dying moments of the Currie Cup clash.
But a late try saw them break their duck, but in the process, the team gave up the chance to host a possible final if they make it through the semi-finals this coming weekend.
They ended second on the log after the defeat and will now play defending champions, the Pumas, for a place in the final.
"On a management-leadership thing, there's probably a lesson for me to learn, but then also for the guys on the field, we got a lot of answers," Mongalo said after the match.
"There are 15 guys back at home who are sharp and getting ready for the final. We need to fill the rest of the group for the bench. And a few guys put up their hands, but then other guys didn't.
"We weren't expecting it to be a romantic, good game of rugby, but we expected to see some fight, and we probably did not see enough of it. From a coaching side, we got something wrong there, but one or two players will be disappointed in their lack of fight tonight (Saturday)."
Mongalo believes they won't have to find momentum again ahead of facing the Pumas because the loss against WP won't affect the guys that they rested.
But they will look to fix a few things in the lead-up to the semis in the Shark Tank.
"We rested 15 guys who aren't scarred by this (loss). They are back home and the last thing they remember is winning a game against the Lions (coming back) from being 14-0 down.
"So there is not a lot of scarring that's been done to that group. And it's about getting eight guys from the group that played today (Saturday). They might have some scarring, but we will sort them out.
"This team has faced adversity plenty before."