Hungry Sharks boost Super finals hopes
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The Sharks are one bonus-point victory away from the Super Rugby play-offs after defeating fellow South Africans the Bulls 32-10 at Kings Park on Friday.
They host Cheetahs next Saturday in another South African derby and another bonus-point triumph will assure them of place in the knockout phase, possibly at the expense of title holders Queensland Reds.
The Bulls can also qualify with a bonus-point home win over bottom-of-the-table Lions while the Stormers are set to top the South African conference and secure a bye into the semi-finals.
The Sharks had to win the penultimate-round match to have any hope of finishing among the top six after the league phase of the southern hemisphere provincial championship and laid their victory foundations during the opening half.
Gaining the upper hand from the kick-off through their rampant pack, the Durban franchise scored two tries via Springboks Bismarck du Plessis and JP Pietersen to turn over 20-3 ahead.
A further try from flank and captain Keegan Daniel four minutes into the second half stretched the advantage to 22 points before three-time champions Bulls hit back with a try from full-back Zane Kirchner.
Fly-half Morne Steyn converted to cut the deficit to 25-10 and the home team had to withstand wave after wave of attacks from the Pretoria franchise before breaking out to score the bonus-point fourth try two minutes from time.
The Sharks won a line-out deep in Bulls territory and after several attempts to score were repulsed, scrum-half Charl McLeod threw a long pass to full-back Louis Ludik and he dived over for a try replacement back Meyer Bosman converted.
France fly-half Frederic Michalak kicked two conversions and a penalty before retiring with an injured right shoulder on 73 minutes and inside centre Francois Steyn planted a 55-metre first-half penalty between the posts.
The Sharks showed no ill effects of not having played since June 2 with the Durban team having a bye last weekend after a three-week break for the traditional mid-year Tests.
They won without several injured stars, including fly-half Patrick Lambie, lock Steven Sykes and tearaway flank Willem Alberts, one of the stars when South Africa defeated England 2-0 in a three-Test series last month.
Daniel heaped special praise on Japan-bound No 8 Ryan Kankowski, whose herculean efforts in a brutal physical battle earned him the the man of the match award.
“I am so proud of the boys — especially Ryan — and we are going to miss him when he goes overseas. This performance demonstrated that we have strength in depth,” said an exhausted but smiling skipper.
Bulls captain and No.8 Pierre Spies had no excuses: “We could never get going and the better team won. The Sharks were hungrier than us and we battled to get out of our half during the opening 40 minutes.”
© AFP 2013The Crowd Says (7) | Page 1 of Comments
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July 7th 2012 @ 8:22am
Jutsy said | July 7th 2012 @ 8:22am | Report comment
Well this result is a surprise and makes it very difficult for the reds
July 7th 2012 @ 8:35am
Rob from Brumby Country said | July 7th 2012 @ 8:35am | Report comment
The only surprise was the margin, for mine. The Sharks are a much better team than their win-loss indicates.
July 7th 2012 @ 10:50am
Jutsie said | July 7th 2012 @ 10:50am | Report comment
Yeah I meant the margin too, was expecting a very tight battle and couldnt decide who to tip, went with bulls due to lambie and alberts being out.
Glad I taped the game will watch it when I finish work today…..work on a saturday
July 7th 2012 @ 9:04pm
Mick said | July 7th 2012 @ 9:04pm | Report comment
That 4th try before the end makes it very, very difficult for the Reds now, and means they no longer control their own destiny, and need to rely on other results. Unfortunately the Sharks, Bulls and Crusaders all have home games against unfancied opposition next weekend. The Reds need the Sharks or Bulls to lose, but more realistically to win without scoring 4 tries + the Reds need to score 4 tries (and win!) against the Tahs. Or the Brumbies to lose in Auckland. At least the Brums and Crusaders play on the Friday, so the Reds will know 2 of the 4 results they’ll be interested in before they play themselves.
I’ll be pretty disappointed if the Reds win their last 6 (after winning their first 3 too!), and still miss out on the finals! That loss to the Force is the key one they’ll rue, also the loss to the Sharks after they had a big lead.
July 7th 2012 @ 10:39pm
Jutsie said | July 7th 2012 @ 10:39pm | Report comment
The sharks game was their season in 40 minutes sublime at times woeful at others losing a number of five eights and a few stupid acts of ill discipline
July 8th 2012 @ 10:47am
Coxinator said | July 8th 2012 @ 10:47am | Report comment
I would say the one that cost us dearly was the game versus Crusaders. Some conservative tactics securing victory rather than getting the try count up has also been a major factor.
July 9th 2012 @ 8:30am
Red Kev said | July 9th 2012 @ 8:30am | Report comment
Nah I agree the Sharks match was when the season went.
Blew a big lead, lost Lucas and Harris having already lost Cooper and Lance.
It affected the team mentally and they went into the Bulls game scared and got pummelled again (I think the Bulls now have the two biggest wins over the Reds of any team).
Those two losses led to the Force loss as they came into Perth low on confidence and at the end of a tour.
It’s not an excuse, but for mine that is when they lost their chance to defend the title.
They should also look back at the decision by Horwill in Round 10 when leading 20-11 against the Blues to kick for goal in the final 10 minutes rather than go for a fourth try – lack of bonus points is why the Brumbies, Sharks, Bulls and Crusaders are ahead of them.
The Crusaders loss was a missed opportunity but to my mind not critical, it was just a loss, those other incidents were failures of one aspect or another of the team.