After suffering a 35-24 final round Carling Currie Cup loss to DHL Western Province at Jonsson Kings Park on Saturday evening, the Cell C Sharks will prepare for this weekend’s home semi-final clash against Tafel Lager Griquas with renewed vigour and determination.
Losing on Saturday had no material effect on the Cell C Sharks’ log position – they started and finished the weekend in second spot – and they had secured an unassailable spot in the top two which guaranteed a home semi-final at Jonsson Kings Park this Saturday. With the Vodacom Blue Bulls pulling off a narrow win over Toyota Free State earlier in the day, they had built up a sizable lead at the top of the log that the Cell C Sharks could not have overtaken.
But for a side that focusses on producing a high standard of play on the field, this result was not what they had hoped to achieve.
“We’re disappointed with the result, as I’ve said before, we’re not results-driven, we’re performance-driven and the performance tonight just wasn’t good enough,” Cell C Sharks head coach Sean Everitt admitted after the game.
“We wanted to build momentum going into the semi-final, but unfortunately that didn’t happen.”
For Province, the match would either extend their campaign for at least another week, or render it a failure for a proud union. They had come into the final weekend of the pool stages in fifth place and a loss or four pointer would have left them to wonder about a tournament where they didn’t feature to their high standards.
As it was, they were hungry for the win and they achieved their goal.
“We’ll take this result on the chin,” said Everitt. “We were up against a desperate team, we knew this all week long, that they were going to bring a lot of desperation and energy to the table.
“I thought they outplayed us, they won the aerial battle and we didn’t stick to the plan on our exits. We were a bit scrappy so we were never really able to build scoreboard pressure.
“We went into the lead in the 70th minute and then gave them field position and ball possession and they capitalised on that to score a try and we couldn’t get back from there, so well done to them.”
Everitt was philosophical about the timing of the loss, given that there were no severe consequences to the team’s title aspirations. But it was a timely reminder that focus and concentration go hand-in-hand with success.
“If there was a game to lose, it was this game and not next week or in the final and we look forward to playing in the semi on the weekend.”
Taking the loss into consideration, Everitt admitted that there would be some work-ons for his team.
“The aerial battle was a concern for me, that’s something we’re usually good at but we weren’t able to win the scraps from the contestable kicks. And then our restarts, we need to work on that because you can’t build scoreboard pressure if you keep giving up possession and territory after you’ve put points on the board.”