Durban - The Sharks travel to Ulster for their final United Rugby Championship game on May 20 with winning momentum and the endorsement of the Connacht team they have just vanquished that they can go all the way in the competition.
The Connacht players were a touch shell-shocked after failing to deal with the raw power of the Sharks’ pack in a second half in which they conceded 31 unanswered points after Connacht had led 21-10 at half-time.
The flank Conor Oliver was in no doubt that the Sharks have the heavy artillery to win the URC.
“They are a team capable of winning this (the URC), no doubt,” Oliver said. “They are 100 percent physical and there is not much between the Sharks and the others in the top four. Their power game is hard to contain. Once their forwards get past phase three, it is really difficult to stop them (four of the five Sharks tries were scored by tight forwards).”
Oliver’s coach, Andy Friend, had a suspicion that the Sharks were going to turn on the heat in the second half.
“We thought at half-time we had put together a reasonable 40minutes and the message was to stay in the physical contest and up the ante because we could see their power starting to come through... But then came some loose kicks from us and they were good enough to cash in, and the momentum switched to them,” the Australian said.
“The Sharks have a lethal back three who can cut you open if you give them the opportunity, and that is what happened,” the coach explained. “Their fullback (Aphelele) Fassi counter-attacks brilliantly and he was allowed to because of poor kicking by us.”
Friend’s counterpart, Sean Everitt, indeed gave his team something of a pep talk at half-time after what had been a sluggish display.
“We spoke about actions being louder than words,” Everitt admitted. “I think maybe the occasion was a bit big for the guys initially but they settled down and got on with the job.
One of the big turning points in the game was a spectacular break from the back by Fassi in the build-up to Marius Louw’s try.
“People think that when you kick the ball away, you’re giving it to the opposition, but if you kick it well, you get it back and have a counter-attacking opportunity,” Everitt said.
“That’s where guys like Aphelele come into the game. He can turn a game around with good feet and pace and that’s exactly what he did.
“He’s really dangerous from the back and when you add the likes of Makazole Mapimpi, we were able to turn it on from there.
“I’m happy the second 40 minutes was better because there were a lot of people who came to watch us and we didn’t want to disappoint them,” he said. “Things didn’t go our way in the first half, which was quite strange and both teams gave away a lot of penalties.
“Both players couldn’t get into their rhythm, but half-time gave us an opportunity to regroup.
“We had to go out and make it happen in the way we planned during the week. It was a pressure game, so I must give the players credit for doing the job.
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