Sharks must take defeat on chin, Everitt says

There are no excuses and the Sharks must take their error-riddled Carling Currie Cup defeat against the Lions on the chin, coach Sean Everitt said.

A 27-12 defeat at Ellis Park saw the Sharks slip into third spot on the log, putting pressure on them to nail down a home semifinal.

All the Sharks’ points came from the boot of flyhalf Curwin Bosch, with two of his four penalties long-range shots coming from inside his own half.

Ahead of the game the Sharks faced selection issues with four of their first-choice tight five being unavailable.

For a variety of reasons, Dan Jooste, Thomas du Toit, Ruben van Heerden and Hyron Andrews were not available for selection.

“We can’t make excuses for that performance because we prepared well,” Everitt said.

“But all the penalties against us, and rightfully so, meant we weren’t able to fire a shot.

“The Lions put us under tremendous pressure for the full 80 minutes, but we have experienced individuals at Super Rugby level so it is no excuse.

“We had a penalty count of 14 against us and you’re not going to win many games with so many penalties against you.

“We are performance-driven and we are not happy with that performance because it was way below standard.

“The territory game is always important and it is affected by the number of penalties you concede.

“We had the Lions under pressure in their half, but then we would make a mistake, there would be a scrum and then we would concede a penalty which would release the pressure.

“You have to commend and congratulate the Lions for this pressure they put us under and they are probably the form team at the moment,” he said.

“It was not a lack of effort on our part.

“We just didn’t perform well and our kicking accuracy wasn’t good enough.

“We want to play according to the momentum and space and if we do have this momentum, then we shouldn’t kick.

“I don’t think there were any kicks when we were on attack.

“But it’s not all doom and gloom, we were still in the game with 20 minutes to go.

“It’s hard to criticise the players for sticking to their structure.

“It has worked for us in the past when we came back from a nine-point deficit against the Bulls and 15 points against the Griquas.

“If there were incorrect decisions made then we will rectify that.

“We just have to take it on the chin that we didn’t score a try.

“We have been scoring tries, we were in the top two of that category going into the game.

“This was purely an error-ridden performance and when you make so many of them like we did in this game, you’re not going to score tries.’

The Sharks face another tough assignment when they travel to Bloemfontein to face the Cheetahs on Sunday.

There is certain to be discussions in the Sharks team room regarding tactical kicking, which left much to be desired at Ellis Park.

This week’s fixtures:

Saturday: WP v Griquas 4.30pm, Bulls v Lions (postponed to January 6).

Sunday: Cheetahs v Sharks 4.30pm.

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