The Cell C Sharks and Glasgow Warriors go head-to-head in a round two Vodacom United Rugby Championship clash on Saturday afternoon with a winning performance uppermost in mind.
Following on from last week’s match against Munster, Cell C Sharks head coach Sean Everitt explained that the focus in training and preparing for the Warriors’ would be about managing the game correctly and being disciplined, as well as limiting turnovers.
“The issues we raised from the Munster game are very fixable,” he admitted in the lead-up to the match.
“We reviewed the game afterwards and 17 penalties isn’t acceptable, at times we were on the wrong side of the 50-50 calls and we need to adapt to the interpretations of the maul as well which was slightly different.
“It was a massive learning curve for us, particularly in where we didn’t want to play on the field, which was between the two 10m lines and we played a lot of rugby there. When Munster turned us over with good defence, we paid the price for that. So we need to be disciplined in our performance all round against Glasgow.
“The Europeans are really disciplined in how they execute their plans. At times against Munster we felt that we played really well, but the bottom line is that you pay big for errors. You’re playing international players, playing an international standard of rugby.”
Playing on an artificial surface is a novel experience for a Cell C Sharks team accustomed to grass, but that doesn’t pose a threat to the visitors’ style, the coach admitted.
“On the 4G pitch, people move quicker although it doesn’t necessarily make the game quicker, but there is more high speed running. We have trained well on this surface and the guys have adapted well, we don’t see this as a threat.”
With Glasgow having previously been coached by Dave Rennie, Everitt explained that, “It’s like playing a Super Rugby team; they play at a high tempo, they do offer a different challenge. They had one of the top carry stats on the weekend, so they do carry the ball a lot and do bring s different type of threat. Where Munster tend to suffocate and strangle, Glasgow play a little bit more.”
Cell C Sharks lock Gerbrandt Grobler’s expectations of Warriors, having previously faced them when he played in Europe, is the enormity of the challenge faced.
“I played against them with my first European club Racing and again when I was with Munster, so I’ve played them four times,” he explained.
“They are a very good side, won it recently, beating Munster in the final and they were really impressive. They have a lot of international players, it’s like playing against the Scottish team, but we’re up for it, we have to be.
“It’s a challenge we’re not going to back down from.”