Sharks intend to address set pieces during bye week

Sharks intend to address set pieces during bye week

The Sharks will use an early bye week to work on their set pieces after securing a 19-16 win over the Lions in the opening match of the Vodacom Super Rugby Unlocked competition.

SuperFan Saturday Bulls vs Sharks
Photo: SARugby



The Durban outfit secured a narrow victory over the visiting team from Johannesburg on Friday night, with the two sides slogging it out in greasy conditions at Kings Park. Sharks flyhalf Curwin Bosch secured the victory with his boot, with both teams having scored one try each during the match.


While the Lions will rue their inability to make use of one final chance to win the game after opting for a scrum on the Sharks’ five metre line on the stroke of full time, the Durban outfit will be looking to improve on that very facet of their play.


The Sharks’ front row reserves showed great composure to secure a penalty in the final set piece of the match after an initial restart, which made amends for earlier shortcoming in that department.


Following the match, Sharks coach Sean Everitt admitted that his team’s lineouts and scrums had not fired as well as they had hoped, although he credited his charges for stepping up when it counted to secure a narrow victory.


“Our set piece struggled tonight, there is no secret about that but that is also what won us the game at the end so I suppose we can’t be too harsh on them. We weren’t happy with our lineout, it's something that we need to work on,” Everitt said.


“We must remember that these guys have only played 40 minutes of rugby together at Loftus, so it was never going to be a complete performance if we are going to be real about it. There’s a lot of work to do but fortunately we survived the first round and have a bye next week and a week of really hard work to prepare for the Bulls at Loftus in a couple of weeks time.”


Working towards early 2020 form


Before COVID-19 enforced a six month break from rugby, the Sharks were sitting top of the original Super Rugby log and were arguably the form team in the competition.


Given the amount of time away from the game and the fairly limited amount of actual game time afforded to teams to prepare for the restart of competition, Everitt is fairly happy with how his team performed on Friday night.


“We’re happy where the guys are from a fitness point of view. When we were finally able to train in larger squads we went straight into fifteen vs fifteen at training mixed with a bit of functional conditioning and the work that we did on our contact skills would have helped,” the coach said.


“We’re happy and I think we finished strongly. The fact that we let it slip a bit on the scoreboard had nothing to do with conditioning, it was more the mistakes that we made and the pressure that we put on ourselves.”


Richardson needs to nurtured


The Sharks essentially have two weeks to prepare for their next match in the Super Rugby Unlocked competition. They will travel up to Pretoria to face the Bulls on Saturday 24 October.


As previously mentioned, the Durban outfit will be looking to address their shortcomings at the lineout in particular. Everitt said it’s a work in progress and that they must also be patient with the development of exciting young hooker Dylan Richardson.


The Kearsney College product featured in the Springbok Green vs Gold clash last weekend and made his Super Rugby debut earlier this year. Having played a large part of his age group rugby as a loose forward, his move to hooker is one that needs to be nurtured.


“We need to sort our set piece out and that is a work-on for us. We must remember that we have a young hooker that is going through a transition from loose forward so those mistakes will happen and we have to be patient,” Everett said.


“He’s a great rugby player and in my opinion a future Springbok in time to come. You saw that he played really well last week as well so I’m not worried about it because those things are fixable and in time they will come right. When we needed the lineout to function it did and we’ll take a lot out of that.”


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