Reflecting on his team’s five-try-to-four, 33-30 bonus point victory over the Dragons at Rodney Parade Stadium in Newport on Saturday, Hollywoodbets Sharks head coach John Plumtree was happy to have emerged successful, but not thrilled with the way the team went about securing a last gasp victory.
"I’m happy with the way we finished the game, but we shouldn’t have been in that situation. When we’re playing good rugby we look pretty comfortable and, for me, the better team. So stuff we can control we’ve got to be better at, that’s been our big focus this week."
Plumtree said that Benetton is considered to be Italy’s strongest club and will pose a significant challenge and will require a disciplined and resilient performance.
He will also be mindful of the fact that they suffered defeats in their last two outings against the Italians on their home patch, the last by a single point in May, with the Durbanites’ only victory against the Italians in Durban in 2022.
“A massive physical challenge because we know they’re going to come hard at us, and we’ve got to play for long periods. The field’s also going to be sticky, we’ve had a lot of rain here in Italy.”
“This team has been on the road for a long time. We’ve played six matches and won five of them. I’m proud of what we’ve achieved, but getting a win here would really finish off a great little block of games that we always knew would be challenging."
When questioned on the return of the current Springboks John Plumtree said the Springboks are eager to play for the Sharks before they join the Springboks for the end-of-year tour to the UK.
"I think they need to play before they go on tour because they had a couple of weeks off now, but they’re not the most important part of it for me, the important part of it for me is they want to play."
"I’ve already had a chat with Eben and he’s dying to get back into it. I asked him if he was off cloud 100 and he ensured he was ready to go back to work."
"We’re confident those boys will be wanting to get back out there in the Sharks jersey, but the challenge is how we’re going to integrate them because there’s quite a few. I’ll make that decision after this game."
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