The Cell C Sharks return home from tour this week ready for two crucial home matches that could go a long way to determining where they will finish up in the jostle for playoff spots and the home ground advantage that comes with success on the Vodacom United Rugby Championship table.
The Sharks face Glasgow Warriors at Kings Park on Saturday before hosting Ulster, the team that beat them in the final log match of the 2021/2022 season to condemn them to travel for their quarterfinal. That will complete the initial block of five matches, and although the Sharks lost 54-34 to Leinster in their final game on the road, coach Sean Everitt reckons his team are still on target for what they set out to achieve from the initial phase of matches.
“We set ourselves the target of getting 10 log points out of this tour and we managed to achieve that,” said Everitt after the RDS Arena game.
“Obviously we were not happy to concede 50 points, no team would be, but not many teams score 34 points against Leinster on their home ground, let alone score five tries. So we will take the positives and continue to grow with the young team we have playing for us.”
Well, the team might not be quite as young for the Warriors game on Saturday, for there could well be a clutch of Springboks returning to duty. Newcomer Eben Etzebeth was among the group of Boks that joined Sharks training in Durban last week and he would not have done that were there not a chance of him making his debut for the Sharks at the weekend.
The appearance of the likes of Etzebeth, Bongi Mbonambi, Bok skipper Siya Kolisi, Ox Nche, Makazole Mapimpi and Jaden Hendrikse in the mix would significantly strengthen the Sharks, but even if those players didn’t return, the Sharks should be better off for the Leinster experience.
Both the Warriors and Ulster will represent a significant step up in intensity and tempo from the two games the Sharks played before the Leinster game, so the frenetic pace that the Dublin game was played in should hold them in good stead for the Ulster match in particular. Leinster and Ulster do appear to be in a league of their own when it comes to the URC challenge outside of the big South African teams, and the step up that happened for the Sharks against Leinster should have helped ready them for the challenge that is to come.
What will particularly help the Sharks ahead of the Ulster game is the smaller margin for error that playing against a team like Leinster entails. Everitt agreed that his team didn’t quite get that right at the weekend but is hopeful the experience will enable them to put in an improved effort over the next two weekends. He said that his team would have to cut down on the individual errors that cost them against Leinster.
“The guys tried really hard and put in maximum effort right to the end, they showed a lot of fight, but unfortunately we were let down by individual errors,” said the Sharks coach.
“Leinster are a class outfit, and Jonny Sexton was world class. He placed us under huge pressure in that second half and we didn’t handle it well. In saying that, we scored five good tries, which we are pleased about, and there were definitely aspects of our game that were much improved from the previous game against the Dragons.”