Gold comments ahead of Sydney

The Waratahs will host the Sharks on Saturday.

Kickoff is scheduled for 11h40 in the morning - South African time.

Here is what Gold had to say ahead of the action in Sydney.

Areas to improve on

I think we need to be tough on ourselves as far as defence goes and improve there. We crossed their line five times and only scored three tries, but we did well to cross five times, so there are lots of encouraging signs from an attack perspective. However, we let them in for four tries which is obviously very disappointing from our point of view. We’d score a try and then let them back in so a lot of hard work has gone into defence because this week we’re playing a team that’s also going to ask a lot of questions of us defensively. They’re a very good attacking team and they’ll be hurting after their performance last weekend. We definitely have a very tough challenge on our hands.

Added motivation for a top 6 place for the Waratahs

Yes they do, but for us as well. There is a lot of pride at stake. We’ve been bitterly disappointed this year and it’s important for us to show that we’re still in this fight to the end. It’s going to be a really tough contest.

Strengths and threats

They’re a very physical team, probably the most physical Australian team. We saw what the Force did to them on the weekend by matching them from a physical point of view, so that’s the challenge for us. And then the likes of Beale, Folau and Ashley-Cooper, they have some fantastic play-makers in the backline. A big strong pack but they move the ball well so we’re really going to have to get our defensive shape right. Their front row has played probably 80 or 90 times together and all of them Wallabies. Then you add the likes of Will Skelton into the mix, Dave Dennis and others, you can see why they’re the reigning champions. They’re a formidable team, one through 15, they’re a very well-balanced team and threats everywhere; this is possibly our toughest challenge to date.

Test of confidence or has the team already turned a corner

The bottom line is that we have to win. At the end of the day, not only did we not win but we didn’t come away with a bonus point.  There are no excuses, we are on a bit of a losing streak and we have to stop the rot. But I can’t fault the effort from the guys, it’s not as if we cowered and went into our shells, I genuinely believe we are working harder now, week on week. I have to highly commend the professionalism of this group. They’re hurting terribly – we all are – no one ever wants to be in this position, not in our wildest dreams. But rugby’s a funny game, you can fix things and earn the respect of your fans quite quickly if you’re prepared to front up in tough situations. That’s what we’re going to continue to do. I’d like us to break our losing streak while we’re on the road, especially against a team like the Waratahs. We’re going to come out firing, we want to repeat the passion and enthusiasm that we played with last week and tighten up our defence. We’ll look to continue scoring tries and play a really good brand of rugby and try to fix what’s been a very disappointing season.

(File Photo: Andre Bloem)

Twitter - @SportswaveAndre @ECRSportswave