Waratahs hang on for vital win over Sharks

 

By , 7 Mar 2010 Darren Walton is a Roar Guru

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The NSW Waratahs held on for dear life to post a potentially season-saving 25-21 victory over the Sharks in Saturday night’s Super 14 clash at the Sydney Football Stadium.

Playing their first home match of 2010 after a draining fortnight in South Africa, the Waratahs spent most of the final quarter camped inside their own half starved of possession.

The Sharks argued they were unfairly denied a match-winning penalty try three minutes from fulltime when NSW replacement fullback Kurtley Beale was yellow-carded for desperately and deliberately knocking down a pass from his Sharks counterpart Stefan Terblanche.

NSW coach Chris Hickey felt Beale was attempting an intercept but, either way, had he not intervened and had Terblanche found his supporting winger, it would have been lights out for the Tahs.

Instead, the Waratahs opened their home campaign in winning, if unspectacular, fashion.

“Certainly there’s some things there that we’ll be working on during the week, but coming away with four points out of that game is really important for the season,” Hickey said.

“Sometimes you do have to grind out wins.”

After back-to-back defeats at the hands of Stormers and Bulls, another loss would have been disastrous for the lowly-positioned Waratahs, who now have a golden opportunity to climb the ladder with three of their next four games in Sydney and the other against the Western Force also in Australia.

The Waratahs had looked to be on their way to a comfortable win after resurgent halfback Luke Burgess put powerhouse hooker Tatafu Polota-Nau – the official man of the match – over under the sticks in the 52nd minute to give NSW a 11-point buffer.

But as the Tahs began to wilt, with Burgess and fellow Wallabies playmaker Berrick Barnes among the many second-half replacements, the Sharks refused to lie down, closing to within four points through a converted try to centre Adrian Jacobs and threatening to spoil the homecoming.

“I suppose it’s fortunate it’s an 80-minute game, not an 82 or 83-minute game,” Waratahs skipper Phil Waugh said. “The guys hung in there.”

In front of a healthy crowd of 20,651 fans at the SFS, NSW had ground their way to a 18-14 halftime lead over the ill-disciplined Sharks.

In an eventful opening stanza, the touring South Africans were briefly reduced to 13 men for a spell for downright unsporting conduct, but the Waratahs left it until late to grab their slender advantage at the interval.

Prop Jannie Du Plessis was the first Shark to receive a yellow card in the 20th minute for blatantly tripping Daniel Halangahu as the NSW five-eighth pursued his own kick down field.

Du Plessis could face suspension for his sinister act, especially given referee Paul Marks didn’t witness the trip and was guided by a linesman, meaning the Sharks may not be able to argue the matter was sufficiently dealt with at the time.

Three minutes later, Sharks fly-half and former England Test star Andy Goode was also sent to the sin bin for deliberately killing the ball in the ruck as the Waratahs attacked their line.

Incredibly, though, it was actually the undermanned Sharks who scored the only try during the pair’s absence with No.8 Ryan Kankowski racing 60 metres to cross in the 26th minute after intercepting from Burgess.

The five-pointer put the Sharks ahead 11-6 after Goode Barnes traded penalty and drop goals in the opening 17 minutes.

The Sharks extended their lead to 14-6 with a Ruan Pienaar penalty shortly after before the Waratahs finally nudged ahead with close-range tries to Halangahu and centre Tom Carter in the 32nd and 38th minutes.

© AAP 2012
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