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Durban - Sharks Director of Rugby Gary Gold feels the 31-16 scoreline was not a true reflection of their Currie Cup match against the Golden Lions last Saturday.
The Sharks led 16-10 with 14 minutes remaining, but three late tries gave the men from Johannesburg a bonus-point victory at Kings Park.
“The final result was not a fair points’ reflection,” Gold told the Sharks’ official website. “We were leading 16-10 and had showed a lot of fight against a very good team. We know how good and cohesive they are, having scored 90s (95) points in the first two rounds.
“If we look at it analytically, we just made bad errors at crucial times and luck did not go our way. For instance, we really put them under pressure at lineout time but when they overthrew the ball in a lineout early in the first half, it bounced up for them and they scored.
“I am just happy with the character and fight we showed.”
Gold explained that the style of rugby the Sharks want to play, one the supporters want to watch, comes with potentially high stakes.
The higher the risk, the greater the reward. But risk can also not bear fruit and the Lions capitalised late in the game when the Sharks looked to run the ball at them.
“If you want to play an up-tempo game, you stand the risk of making errors,” Gold pointed out. “Or we could just play a completely conservative game, with no rugby in our half and then we would limit errors. But we want to put ourselves under pressure by playing good rugby, we just need to eliminate the errors.”
Gold was also pleased with the energy shown, after finding it lacking the previous week.
“The guys were up for it on defence and brought a lot of energy in that department, and that is all we can ask for. We did not have the energy against the Kings but we had it against the Lions.”
Examining the flurry of points in the last quarter, Gold added, “I don’t think we were under pressure, it was just a case of cracks opening, we made stupid errors. Maybe I should possibly not have made substitutions in terms of ‘it was not broken so why fix it.’ It was just silly errors that led to their tries.
In their next assignment, the Sharks tackle the EP Kings in Port Elizabeth this Saturday (17:05 kick-off).
