Sharks director of rugby Neil Powell said he was proud of his team's defensive effort against Edinburgh. Picture: Getty Images
The Sharks achieved a lot during their gutsy 22-19 win over Edinburgh at the weekend: not only did they bag four vital away points, but they also climbed back into the top eight on the United Rugby Championship log and earned huge plaudits from director of rugby Neil Powell.
If the Sharks beat the Stormers in Durban this weekend with a bonus point, then they could find themselves just seven points behind the South African Shield leaders with a game still in hand. They would also just be a couple of points behind the Bulls, who are fourth on the overall log and have played an extra match.
The difficulty in winning overseas was shown by the Stormers, Bulls and Lions all losing on the weekend, so victory for the Sharks was a considerable boost.
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“It was a massive effort and overall a very good win, especially when you think about the other South African results,” Powell said.
“We will definitely take a lot of confidence, momentum and flow from this performance.
“We’ll enjoy this win, fly back to South Africa and refocus and start preparing for the Stormers game. But there was real commitment shown on the field, especially in defence.
“We are so proud of the boys for their effort, fight and character. We asked them to be really physical and dominant, and they did exactly that,” Powell added.
“I know the last few minutes were really tough, but we actually did that for the whole 80 minutes. That should become the Sharks standard now, we need to really pitch up for every single game.”
While the Stormers are known for playing the sort of rugby that feels like a luxuriant mohair jersey, the Sharks are cut from different cloth and Powell wants them to be more like a cotton T-shirt – pragmatic, in other words.
“In the first 25-30 minutes we made a really good start against Edinburgh. We defended well, we stayed in our structure and played in the right areas,” Powell said.
“But in the last 10-15 minutes of the first half they basically played off our mistakes. We almost made it an unstructured game.
“So the big message at halftime was to get back to our structure, force them back into playing like we wanted to.
“We shouldn’t get caught up in how they want to play. We don’t want to make the game loose and unstructured.”
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