Head coach John Plumtree rued the “frustrating performance” from the Sharks against the Lions as they remain rooted to the bottom of the standings in the Vodacom URC.
Ivan van Rooyen’s charges beat the Sharks for the second time this season in a weather-affected six-try 40-10 victory at Ellis Park on Saturday.
Such was the effectiveness of the Johannesburgers’ attack, they crossed the whitewash six times while their tenacious defence limited the visitors to a converted try and a penalty despite a committed effort to attack strongly at key times.
The defeat left the Durbanites still winless against SA rivals in the 2023-24 campaign after 10 defeats from 11 matches, and in a post-match release, Plumtree stated: “It’s a frustrating performance again from us. We were in it for 60 minutes and then the last 20 minutes wasn’t good enough.
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“Again, up front, we struggled a bit in the scrum, and we allowed them access into our 22, and then their forwards got on top of us with their drive.
“I’m really proud of the boys around the effort. We started badly again like the DHL Stormers [match]. We were 19-3 down and we came back to 19-10 at half time.
He added: “We had two or three tries disallowed in the first half, which was pretty frustrating. We had a poor start and a poor finish, so we just got to keep working hard and keep believing.
“We know that we will get it right but clearly we weren’t good enough on the weekend.”
Photo: Gerhard Duraan/BackpagePix
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Src: sarugbymag.co.za
