The Sharks beat the Stormers 12 – 6 at Kings Park on Saturday night, being the better of two bad teams on the night, and just doing enough to come away from the match with four points.
After a scoreless first half, the second half started with penalties for both sides, Lambie putting the Sharks in the lead first before Pietersen equalised. Both flyhalves exchanged another set of penalties to take the score to 6 all, before Lambie kicked two further penalties to take the lead to six points.
The first half was a disappointing forty minutes of rugby, with both teams looking too scared to run with the ball, rather kicking it for the wingers to chase. Gio Aplon had the best chance of the half, having an open tryline in front of him, but failing to cleanly collect a Jantjies cross kick.
The Sharks did well to upset the Stormers at lineout time, and bossed the scrums to dominate the set pieces, but failed to do anything with that. Possession and territory stats were still even for both sides.
Jean Deysel was announced as Man of the Match, and probably deservingly so, as his impact was tangible. He stole a few balls at the breakdown and looked good with ball in hand, just a shame about his upward running style, a problem all the Sharks loosies had.
Both teams did not look like scoring a try, and the lack of creativity in Soutt African rugby is evident. All South African teams will have to be wary of the New Zealand teams, who will run over us if the current form is anything to go by.
The Sharks now travel to Port Elizabeth to take on the Kings while the Stormers go back to Cape Town to host the Chiefs.
Tweet
So did Jantjies or Joe kick for goal?
@Ben (Comment 1) : Joe.
@Ben (Comment 1) :
Apologies
@Richard Ferguson (Comment 3) : No worries. Just confused. Did Joe kick the very first one at goal in the first half? The one they missed.
@Ben (Comment 4) :
Joe kicked from the start
@Ben (Comment 4) : the first miss was Lambie.
Good night folks.
Be nice to everyone all the time. 🙂
@McLovin (Comment 7) : why? ag ok good night and lekker slaap.
@Richard Ferguson (Comment 3) : The Sharks forwards look a bit slow tonight if you compare this game with last week. They should have been way more dominant in the scrums and at the breakdowns. what do you think?
Now THAT was a boring game. Goodnight all, im now in the mood for a zzzz.
I only watched our first game against the Streamers last year, but weren’t both games as slow and dour as the one we saw today?
It just seems to be the way these two teams play each other.
@FireTheLooser (Comment 11) : it seems as if the Sharks forwards are scarred of them. They don’t play with any fire in them.
@JD (Comment 12) : did you watch the second half?
@robdylan (Comment 13) : yes, ball control at rucks was very poor and don’t think the forwards played nearly as good as against the cheetahs last week.
I actually enjoyed the game, neither team played excellent running rugby, but it was a game of survival, and that both teams did very well. First low score game I have enjoyed in ages
@Die Kriek (Comment 15) : was a hard game. Glad Sharks won, will take the 4 point against the stormers.
@robdylan (Comment 13) : @Die Kriek (Comment 15) : no matter what happens next week stormers and cheethas will remain bottom two of SA log. king will be above them for atleast first 3 weeks of super rugby. HAHAHAHAHAHA 😈
@JD (Comment 14) : Huge difference in quality of opposition.
Sorry to say Rob but Sharks tight 5 should be dominant against stormers. Cheetahs and stormers tight 5’s are about equal and Sharks must be dominant against them!!!
@JD (Comment 19) : Agree! PSDT needs to be part of that tight 5 more now that Bissie, WA and KD are injured.
Owen Nkumane, “Wow, what a game of rugby!”
– THAT RIGHT THERE IS THE PROBLEM WITH SA RUGBY. Satisfied with mediocre. Apart from the crosskick to Aplon THERE WAS NOTHING WORTH WATCHING IN THAT GAME!!!
Once again Plum has completely deviated from the gr8 style we used last 6 weeks of S15 last year. It was the same in 2011 after we played so well in 2010 Currie Cup….
Richard got it spot on – look out for the NZ teams (again)
If tries are the only measure of entertainment, then go support whoever plays aganst the Cheetahs.
Fact is that both these teams are defensively strong, which means that you have to look for alternative ways through the defense. That means a chip kick or grubber to beat the rush defense, could be what is needed to score tries. I will venture that by the end of the season the only tries scored against these two teams by NZ teams, will be ground out from up close, or through a breakaway event against the run of play.
Fact no. 2: the first half of the season never yielded many tries in Durban, mainly due to the humidity. How short your memories are…
Be prepared to be reminded, pessimists.
It was a good game ,the tries will come ,for now I am happy with a win.
I think we underestimate the value we had in guys like Tim, Keegan and Mich from an attacking point of view. My one concern is how un-inventive we are looking in the backline ,reading the names you would be in disbelief watching the attacking drivel they produced.
Our lineouts remain a concern as does our defending of mauls…
The biggest positive for me was our cleaning out at the breakdown, it is by far the best out of the home teams.
The amount of handling errors, wrong options and general inability to create opportunities on both sides was shocking.
Compare this game to Blues vs Crusaders or Reds vs Hurricanes. Light years of difference in skill and execution.
Why do we start like this EVERY year?
We were lucky that Aplon didn’t catch that chip kick. I have a feeling that it could have sealed the match that early already.
wow deysel gets almost a full 80mins after like 2years and look what happens. Bet he warms the bench next game.
@JD (Comment 19) : You’re dreaming old chap. Not much difference, if any between Sharks & Stormers tight 5. 😛
@rhineshark (Comment 25) : your “EVERY year” comment : seriously? We bemoan the humidity that lasts all through March every year because it makes it impossible to score tries.
Sharks must keep on winning games bonus points will come. Way beter start than last year. GO SHARKS!!!!
Personally i thought it was a great game of rugby between 2 very evenly matched teams. Defense was good on both sides. Yes some will say there was a lot of kicking but that was a result of good defense not bad attacking. Bad attacking would have meant each team just continually running into the opposition time and time again with numerous turnovers. And believe me having seats right next to the field meant i saw first hand that no team held back in the collisions trust me!
A win is a great result given the conditions. I can also see why we resorted to the kicking game.
If we tried to play a running game, we would have lost. The inability to protect our ball at the rucks has not improved from last year. We are not going to be able to sustain an attack if we cannot hold on to our ball.
The defense was great, but then again the Stormers did not really question our defense either.
Burden seems to have mostly sorted out his lineouts, but Cooper will need to step up now.
So all in all a good result – but we have lots of work to do.
@Bokhoring (Comment 31) : One reason we struggled to protect the ball at the breakdown was because the 2-man forward “pod” would be set up, with the remainder of the forwards still stuck at the previous breakdown.
Hence nobody there to protect the ball. I feel Reinach should be managing this better. He was extremely poor on Saturday.
It was by now means a perfect game but I think in the context of the competition it might have just done the trick. Our set pieces look much better, our defence rock solid and now we have a game against the Kings were we can start experimenting a bit on attack.
We are still in a great position in the competition. The Bulls have a really tough tour ahead, The Stormers now have to play the Chiefs and the Cheetah’s probably won’t win more than one game on tour. The Sharks have an opportunity to build a good lead in the SA conference before going on tour.
@FireTheLooser (Comment 32) : Our forwards really have no clue how to attack at close quarters. They seem to be very uncoordinated, and most often than not will conspire to turnover the ball inside a maximum of 3-4 phases.
@King Shark (Comment 22) : That is really a kak comment. The Cheetahs scored plenty of tries last year too. Try not be an ass all the time. Just some of the time is ok!
Blues, Lions, rebels and Force, all had more tries scored against them last year. So go tak [email protected] somewhere else
@King Shark (Comment 28) : The humidity factor is only an issue in Durban. It doesn’t matter where we play; EVERY year we start off like we’re learning the game from scratch.
@rhineshark (Comment 36) :
2 from 2 and 8 logpoints after playing our bogey team and the SA conference winners from last year. I’ll take that….for now!
@King Shark (Comment 28) : And you want to tell me we can’t learn to play properly in OUR OWN conditions? Teams should be hating the fact that they have to play us in Durban in March, because the conditions favour us as the home side.
The reality is that the playing field is level, because of our inability to use home conditions to our advantage.
@Pokkel (Comment 37) : Me too, but it’s just frustrating that we are playing at a level far lower than we’re capable of.
@rhineshark (Comment 39) : Just ask the AB’s whether it’s possible to stay at your peak for the whole season.
We have to time our peak, in 2008 and 2009 we hit the ground running and came unstuck when it mattered most.
Last year we peaked at the right time, but we lost the close games at the start of the season.
In 2007 we got our first bonus point try after the 7th or 8th game, having played the first 5 or 6 games at home.
I`m just relieved that we got 4 points out of this.
I can live with a slow start, as long as we peak somewhere near the business end of the competition. But we`ll need to be in a better position than last year. Trying to win this from 6th on the log is just too difficult. . .
@SheldonK (Comment 30) : I agree. Quite enjoyed it, despite the result. 🙂
Having not seen the game, as I had bigger fish to fry (frog hunting with my daughter), I can comment from an outsider’s perspective. So far the season reads: played two, won two. One of those was an away game against a team that has traditionally troubled us (though admittedly less so in recent years). The other was against last year’s conference- and Currie Cup winner. Now contrast that to the last few years’ results. And as for the standard of play, remember that Super Rugby is a marathon, not a sprint. It’s like the time I ran the Comrades; I started on a slow shuffle, and four and a half hours later I streaked across the finish line carrying Milan Yovovich in my arms. No wait, that may have been a dream…
Never saw the game, but sounds like a good grinding win for the Sharks.
Congrats chaps.
@FireTheLooser (Comment 40) : Last year we didn’t peak at the right time. We had to travel 3 time zones in three weeks for winner takes all playoff games, because we left it too late to secure home playoffs and, if we’re brutally honest, just scraped in.
There was no way in hell we were ever going to win the title with such a brutal travel plan.
Maybe I’m just a grumpy moron, but I’m pissed off at the poor quality of rugby we play during the first half of every season. We got two wins in two so far this year, but it could easily have been zero from two.