Sharks improve on two things before ‘second chance’ against Lions

Two United Rugby Championship (URC) local derbies between the Sharks and Lions on back-to-back weekends have given players the chance to immediately address issues that were evident in the first game before the second, albeit with very little time to do so.

The Lions won the first derby convincingly with six tries to two (final score 38–14) in Johannesburg last Saturday and will travel to Durban for the second match exactly a week later.

This will also be the final local derby played by any South African team. The Stormers currently lead the SA shield but a Sharks win would see them overtake the Capetonians based on number of wins, without points difference needing to be calculated, as per URC rules.

The Lions are fourth but could supplant the Sharks if they earn another bonus-point win by at least 11 points, and the Sharks do not secure a losing bonus point.

Sharks get their second chance

In the first match, the Lions ran in six tries against the Sharks, to every fan and pundit’s surprise.

What was more surprising was that the dangerous Sharks outfit took a whopping 77 minutes to score any points.

If not for Ethan Hooker and Siya Kolisi’s tries in the last three minutes, the Sharks would have been victims of a whitewash.

Sharks winger Yaw Penxe told media this week the team had highlighted their areas of improvement

“We are essentially getting a second chance a week later, which doesn’t happen often. We can right our wrongs,” the 27-year-old flyer said.

He said the Sharks had a “proper look at ourselves”, both individually and as a unit.

“We know where we went wrong and we’ve been working on it the past couple of days going into the weekend.”

Sharks highlight physicality in defence and skillset of players

Penxe said these two areas of improvement were physicality in defence and skillset – the latter especially being the technical abilities of kickers and players retaining possession at the breakdown.

“When the Lions were in our half, in our 22, we weren’t as physical as we would have liked to have been.

“And skillset as well, where we gave away a couple of turnovers and they put us straight back into our half. We had a couple of inaccurate kicks which hurt us.”

“It was [about] sharpening our skillsets this week and the physicality side, which is more a mental aspect.”