The Cape Town defeat: Sharks trust their gut

Cell C Sharks captain Reniel Hugo says that his team did not go to Cape Town last weekend to lose but he says the leadership and management group still trust their guts and feel they made the right decision.

Coach Joey Mongalo picked a team that was uploaded with United Rugby Championship players and featured 14 changes from the one that had beaten the Fidelity ADT Lions the previous week for their final Carling Currie Cup league game against DHL Western Province.

It wasn’t a dead rubber game as the top position on the final log was up for grabs, and the Sharks surrendered that to the Toyota Cheetahs when they lost 44-5 at the DHL Stadium.

According to second row forward Hugo, who got his first feel of the Currie Cup trophy when he won it while playing for the Cheetahs in 2016, while the result didn’t go the Sharks’ way it was still the right decision.

“Obviously having already booked a home semi it was an ideal opportunity to rest guys who played a lot of minutes during the season (in preparation for the playoffs),” said Hugo.

“It has been a long Currie Cup season and there has been no rest period. It did give some of us a chance to rest a bit and be fresh for the playoffs. I don’t think the momentum thing, as in us possibly losing momentum because we lost, will be a factor. I have played rugby for a long time and we as players don’t really think of things like that. Saturday’s semifinal against the (Airlink) Pumas is a different game and you start from scratch. What happens before doesn’t impact.”

Hugo agreed though that it would have been nice to finish top, which would have ensured a home final should the Sharks get past the Pumas this week.

“We would like to have won the game. The coaching staff and we as a playing group didn’t go to Cape Town to lose. We wanted to do the job, we wanted to finish first. But what happened is now in the past. You have to trust our gut and we felt the right decisions was made in resting the players.

“To be honest, we are not looking too far ahead. We are not thinking about a final at this point. For us the focus is just on beating the Pumas this week. The Pumas are defending champions in the competition and will be hungry. But we are fortunate that we will be playing in front of our fans. We are a group of desperate men and we want to go all the way in the Currie Cup.”

Hugo knows it won’t be easy against the Pumas as both wins the Sharks scored against the men from Mpumalanga were by very close margins.

“The Pumas pride themselves on the set piece, they are coached by a good coach in Jimmy Stonehouse, and are a very hard, physical team,” said the lock.

“They will come here wanting to dominate the set piece, the lineouts, the scrums and the mauls. They also have X-factor players like Devon Williams at the back, and guys who are good at the kicking game. They will come here to go for the win, but we trust our systems and we will just have to be better in every aspect of the game. You can’t rest for one minute against a team like the Pumas and not expect to be hurt by that.”