Sharks' game must improve to survive Champions Cup bunfight

The defeat suffered at the hands of the Lions in their eight round Vodacom URC game has left the Hollywoodbets Sharks in a bunfight to make something of their season in both of the major competitions they are competing in.

When Hashim Pead went over for the try that punished the Sharks’ hopeless game management this past weekend it ensured the Sharks remain firmly rooted in the position they occupied in the URC the season before last. Meaning 14th.

It would be wrong to say they are out of what is considered their primary competition, for they just need to finish eighth to make the playoffs, and they have enough star quality on their books to thrive at the business end of the season, when for a start they should have a refreshed Eben Etzebeth after the completion of his suspension.

However, at this point an improvement on last year’s failure to get out of the pool phase of the Investec Champions Cup, the competition that is in their long term planning as the one to win, is a more immediate and realistic goal thanks to the important win they scored against Saracens before Christmas.

LETTING SARACENS GET A BONUS POINT MIGHT COST THEM

Unfortunately allowing Saracens to leave Hollywoodbets Kings Park with a losing bonus point might come back to bite them. Any log point accumulated in an away game in the Champions Cup is like gold, and by doing what the Sharks failed to do the previous week away to Toulouse, the English club got a leg up on the South African team that they have such a strong link with due to the friendship between the respective owners.

The bonus point they picked up in Durban means Saracens are second in Pool A going into the last two rounds of fixtures, ahead of third placed Toulouse and the fourth placed Sale Sharks, with the KZN version of the Sharks in fifth place. If the log order stays that way until the finish of the group stage, that will mean the Sharks fall into the Challenge Cup for the round of 16 phase for the second successive year.

REMAINING POOL GAMES ARE WINNABLE

However, their new coach JP Pietersen believes his team is on an upward curve when it comes to their performance graph and if that is true, then there is a good chance they could book a passage into the round of 16, perhaps even with home ground advantage, because both of their remaining games are winnable.

They are away to Sale Sharks on Saturday night and if they have all their Springboks in tow, and there’s no reason for them not to - and unlike when they went to Toulouse at the start fo the competition, they do have a seven day gap as opposed to a six day turnaround to their remaining home game against Clermont-Auvergne - they have a chance of winning.

The Clermont game they will fancy for it will be recalled that it was the French club they beat in the EPCR Challenge Cup semifinal in London two seasons ago. If they can win against that team away from Durban they should fancy their chances of doing it in front of their own supporters at Kings Park.

Yet despite the upbeat mood of their coach afterwards, the Lions defeat was an indicator of how much work the Sharks still need to do before they can really consider themselves to be on an upward trajectory, and there are no prizes for figuring out that it is their lamentable game management that most needs to be sorted out if they are going to win their next two games.

Pietersen gave out a confusing message in his post-match summation of the reason his team lost to the Lions - in one breath he said they’d suffered because they were over the line twice without tries being awarded, but he also admitted that his team should have put the game out of reach of the Lions by making use of the several kickable penalties they eschewed late in the game.

“I won’t say it was costly,” he said of his team’s failure to take the opportunity to kick the points that would have taken the Sharks out of reach of the Lions and their strong finish that enabled them to win it with Pead’s try off the last move of the game.

“We had two clear try-scoring opportunities. If you score those tries, the story is different. In hindsight, yes, you take the three points, that does make sense, but I wouldn’t say that defined the game.”

Thank you to everyone that came out to the Tank on Saturday 🖤🦈

Not the result we wanted to give you but we hope to see you at our next home game on Jan 17. pic.twitter.com/TvDE5fQESM — The Sharks (@SharksRugby) January 5, 2026

KICKING THE POINTS WOULD HAVE PUT THEM OUT OF REACH

Maybe it didn’t define the game as such, but the Sharks wouldn’t have lost if they’d just done what he admitted was the sensible thing to do. There were also of course three missed conversions in addition to Phepsi Buthelezi being held up over the line and then the try that was chalked off because of a knock-on spotted in the buildup to the score.

The Sharks need to rid themselves of that tendency to largesse, meaning wasted opportunities, but Pietersen was right to draw some inspiration from his side’s recovery from being 15-0 down early in the game to be in a position to put it away in the second half. Of course, they were also helped in their comeback by the red card shown to Ruan Venter for a dangerous tackle, which meant that the Lions were down to 14 men during the middle stages of the game when the Sharks were dominant.

But a Sharks team without any drive or culture wouldn’t have recovered from such a slow start, although going behind early is also not something that is completely new for the Sharks and is also a work on for them. They effectively lost their first home URC game against Ulster in the first 20 minutes and that was pretty much the tipping point that led eventually to John Plumtree deciding to move aside as head coach to give Pietersen a chance to prove himself as a suitable candidate to take the Sharks forward as permanent head coach.

“If you’re 15-0 down in the first 10 minutes, you give yourself a mountain to climb,” he said. “We showed character to get back into it, but we need to be in the game from minute one if we want to close out tight matches like this.”