If before the Hollywoodbets Sharks’ final Vodacom United Championship league game you’d suggested that Aphelele Fassi would be their points scoring hero you’d have expected him to have scored tries but that was not the case as the hosts edged the Scarlets 12-3 in Durban.
You have to feel a bit sorry for the losers after this horrible, turgid game with no tries, for they were heading at the very least for a bonus point before Fassi stepped up to kick his third penalty on the hooter to deny them the log point that would have represented the difference between seventh and eighth on the final log.
That kick means the Scarlets will face top seeds Leinster in Dublin in their first game of the Finals Series a fortnight from now and everyone knows how formidable the Irish side are, particularly on their home ground. Mind you, the alternative, which was a trip to Pretoria to the second placed Bulls had they finished second, would have been a difficult assignment too.
For the second game in succession a game at Hollywoodbets Kings Park was impacted by what you’d say was a surprisingly wet ball for this time of the year. In the humid summer months it would have been expected, but not in autumn.
Not that that can be used as an excuse by the Sharks who frankly are producing rugby that is not up to the standard that should be expected if you consider their vast resources and the many internationals on their books. And yet they do keep winning and will take that winning momentum into the quarterfinal, which pending the result of the Leinster game against Leinster later in the day is likely to be against Munster.
EBEN SUMMED IT UP
The Sharks skipper Eben Etzebeth summed it up perfectly though when he said afterwards in his television interview that his team is going to have to be a lot better, and will have to sort out their ridiculously high error rate, if they are going to go deeper in the competition. Etzebeth was a deserved recipient of the man of the match award for his busy performance, but it was hard to find any other standouts in the Sharks team in a game that frankly was hard to watch.
The Sharks got through this tight battle chiefly because of their scrum and while they did lose a poached lineout from a throw to the back late in the first half their lineout was also again strong. The Scarlets also let themselves down with the number of penalties they gave away, 17, and that gave the Sharks frequent entries into their 22.
The Sharks did win the kicking battle but their territorial advantage, given that they never crossed the Scarlets line, showed up their shortcomings on attack. Time and again they went into the Scarlets 22 only to waste the entry into the opposition red zone by making elementary errors. By the 24th minute they had made five handling errors and it never really improved after that.
SCARLETS’ HANDLING WAS POOR TOO
The Scarlets weren’t much better with their handling and there were some comical moments, like one bumbling interplay between the lineout and the hooker in the tramlines when the Scarlets were trying to chase the game in the last five minutes that was very costly to them.
The Scarlets never created much on attack in a game dominated by the defensive systems, and had the Welsh team won then the alternative man of the match would have been their flanker Archie Hughes, who was excellent at the breakdowns and his defensive efforts also seemed to cause some disconnect in the Sharks’ attempts to run the ball down the line on attack.
The first half was scoreless up until the 38th minute, which was when flyhalf Siya Masuku raised the flags with a penalty to put his team 3-0 ahead. The Scarlets responded on the stroke of halftime to make it 3-all at the break.
Masuku’s penalty was his last kick of the game for he was injured early in the second half and that was why Fassi took over the goalkicking. The fullback’s three penalties were what saw the hosts home and they now await the result of the game in Dublin to see whether they finish third or fourth and whether they face Munster, who they outplayed in a league game in Durban in October, or the Stormers, who they edged narrowly in Durban in late November and then lost to in Cape Town a month later.
Whoever they play, they are going to have to be better than they were in this game which had former Springbok flyhalf Joel Stransky, working as a SuperSport commentator, suggesting that the man of the match should have been the stadium DJ, who kept the crowd rocking despite the lack of riveting on field entertainment. Personally I’d have given it to the singer Neil Diamond for ‘Sweet Caroline’, which was the real high point of the game apart from the final whistle that confirmed the home victory.
SCORES
HOLLYWOODBETS SHARKS 12 - Penalties: Siya Masuku and Aphelele Fassi 3.
SCARLETS 3 - Drop-goal: Sam Costelow.