Gold – Currie Cup a building phase
The Sharks travel to Port Elizabeth to take on the EP Kings for the second time in the domestic competition this weekend. They have one win from three matches and are looking for a confidence-boosting win ahead of a tough string of matches against the Pumas, Western Province and Lions in the coming weeks.
The Sharks boss was hard-pressed to say the development of youngsters was the main objective of the Currie Cup campaign, but refused to make predictions of title hopes.
“That’s a tough question to answer because I would never want to say that we won’t be competitive, I want us to be in every single game. I just don’t want to step over that line and make predictions about winning anything,” Gold said.
“I want us to play a brand of rugby that I think we played for 65 minutes last weekend. People were very happy with it; we were hugely competitive and massively physical against a very good Lions team and had a 16-10 lead against them. Now we have to learn how to close out those games.”
“We will learn by making those mistakes and that’s why I’m excited about this group. I’d prefer to not make any predictions, just hopefully continue to improve every week.”
Nevertheless the Kings Park faithful demand nothing but the best and Gold agreed that this weekend’s clash is a good opportunity to build some continuity and get back to winning ways.
“I’d rather see it as an opportunity to build on last week. We were pleased with 65 minutes of our game last week and to be able to build on that and make sure our focus is not to just play for 65 minutes.”
“I hope that it will be a platform. We are in an interesting situation and every team gets there when they have a lot of youngsters playing in their first Currie Cup.
"It’s a bit of a chicken and the egg scenario; we are playing spates of good rugby and then we lose a bit of concentration or the bounce of the ball or a decision goes for or against us and you almost need to have a game like the Lions one where you come away with a win.”
“We are playing well but didn’t get the win and the intercept try towards the end didn’t help. It has the potential to hurt your confidence. We are just backing the players and their performances and I have been genuine about it – I was happy with the team’s performance but not the result.”
“But I will continue to back these guys and hopefully this weekend can be a stepping-stone for us,” Gold said.
The Sharks face the EP Kings on Saturday. Kickoff is at 17h05.
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