Everitt: Sharks pack’s performance against the Bulls was ‘outstanding’

Sharks coach Sean Everitt paid tribute to his pack for going toe-to-toe with the Bulls and standing their ground as the KwaZulu-Natalians claimed a thrilling 32-29 victory in their Currie Cup match at Kings Park in Durban at the weekend.

The Sharks pack has had its critics this season but against the Bulls they enjoyed parity in the scrums and lineouts – winning a couple of crucial opposition throws in the closing stages – and the breakdowns, an area of strength for the Pretoria side, were fiercely contested.

“I have to give credit to the pack, they were outstanding, and we knew that if we could get parity up front then we could really compete. The character shown by the pack was tremendous, they really stood up and showed what they can do.

“We’ve worked hard on our breakdown, where Dylan Richardson was outstanding, I can only commend his effort week in and week out,” Everitt said.

“And the last time we played the Bulls, at Loftus Versfeld (October), our lineout didn’t function so we also worked very hard on that. Plus I was happy we only conceded two scrum penalties. Getting some experienced personnel back certainly does help, and now we have another very good pack to take on next weekend in the Lions.”

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It wasn’t quite a perfect performance by the Sharks – Everitt acknowledged the missed penalty by Morne Steyn that would have held them to a draw, but in terms of effort, one could only give the home side 10/10. While not implying that the Bulls gave anything less than 100%, the Sharks just seemed to have more hunger and determination on the day.

“It was a great performance and a massive improvement over the whole 80 minutes, it took great hunger and determination to win it in the last five minutes. But if you look at the match as a whole, then I think we deserved this one.

“We’ve built some depth over the last six weeks and it is certainly paying off. We’re hoping to reach peak performance at the right time.

“Winning at home is also really important for us and we’re very happy we’ve maintained our 100% home record. It’s unfortunate that there have been no spectators to see it, but one of our goals this year was to make Kings Park our fortress.

“Now we go on a mini-tour to Johannesburg and Bloemfontein, but we won three of our four Super Rugby games on tour so that will help with the confidence,” Everitt said.

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