The Cell C Sharks take on the Dragons in Newport this evening in their second Vodacom United Rugby Championship match, looking to make a big statement on tour, although they are well-aware of the challenge and threats they face.
Despite beating the Welsh side comfortably in the last URC, the Cell C Sharks know they have their work cut out for them against a side that beat Munster last weekend.
“This is a different team,” Cell C Sharks head coach Sean Everitt acknowledged from the team’s base.
“We were fortunate to play the Dragons at home and it was difficult for them in Durban that time of the year and we’re expecting a different challenge this time around.
“They’re an extremely difficult side to overcome at home, they’re physical by nature and pride themselves on their physicality and collisions, so we have to be up for that to be able to get the result against them.”
The Cell C Sharks coach also admitted that the 51-3 scoreline at Hollywoodbets Kings Park has little bearing on this game.
“In that game we were dominant from a physicality point of view, but we saw last week that they dominated Munster, so we’re well-aware of what’s coming our way. They’re vastly improved from the outfit we played in Durban earlier in the year.
“They’re a quality side, they have a new head coach and they’re certainly a different kettle of fish at home.”
Looking back to last week’s clash against Zebre and the lessons learned from that game, Everitt pointed out that, “The first half was probably the best 40 minutes we’ve played for a long time, we were very happy with that and will take the positives from it. But we allowed them to get momentum in the second half and never stuck to our kicking plan, so lessons were learned.
“We put ourselves under the pump more so than them putting pressure on us, but these are fixables and we’ve had an eight day turnaround to work on that and we’re raring to go.”
With the Springboks having finished their Castle Lager Rugby Championship campaign, Everitt explained that they would be slowly re-introduced into the URC.
“Our Springboks have been given a week off and will integrate back into team training in Durban from next week and if we need to call any player in then we will, but I’d prefer for them to get up to date with what we’ve been doing in pre-season.
“Barring any injuries, we’d like to hold off on selecting them before we host Glasgow in Durban.”