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Cape Town - As they prepare to face the Golden Lions in a Currie Cup clash in Johannesburg on Saturday, the Sharks are intent on improving their set-pieces.
The Durbanites are coming off a 37-27 home loss to Western Province last weekend and now face a tough prospect against the unbeaten log-leaders.
“Scrums will definitely be a major focus point, especially knowing what the Lions bring to the party with probably the best scrum in the country at the moment,” forwards coach Ryan Strudwick told the Sharks’ official website.
“Our set-piece is improving but we are concerned with the scrumming; it’s costing us a lot of penalties and it’s really hurting us. However, we are working with the youngsters and we are trying to develop them; we need to keep persevering.”
The Sharks know they will head into the clash at Ellis Park as underdogs, but they are up for the challenge.
“It’s a massive challenge for us, especially up there,” said Strudwick admits. “We feel we can take them - we feel that with every team - because we can’t go into games thinking we’re going to lose. We targeted these three games (WP, Lions and Bulls) to win all three. We’ve stumbled on the first one so we will go into this game with a positive outlook and we’re going up to Johannesburg to try and win.
“The Lions have a really balanced team and have been working together for a while, they are improving every week and getting better and better and they’re proving that week in and week out.
“We feel we had a bit of a chance against them when we played them in the first round in Durban, it could have gone either way but for them to score two broken play tries in the end. We are confident, we aren’t going up there with a negative attitude - we will go there all guns blazing and hopefully get the result we need.”
Saturday’s clash at Ellis Park is scheduled for 14:30.
