Week two in the Carling Currie Cup proved to be a round of big results for the smaller unions, with the Hollywoodbets Sharks XV, Vodacom Blue Bulls and DHL Stormers XXIII all going down in their fixtures.
It was a case of missed opportunities in a game where the Hollywoodbets Sharks XV were certainly in the running for victory, but for a late rally from the hosts to create a scoreboard margin that didn’t reflect the true nature of how tight the match actually was.
“We created a lot of opportunities but didn’t capitalise on them,” head coach Mike Vowles said afterwards.
“The Toyota Cheetahs, when they did get opportunities, sometimes against the run of play, took their chances.”
Vowles also paid tribute to a returning Springbok who has come back to South Africa after playing abroad and certainly injected life into the Toyota Cheetahs’ attack.
“Faf de Klerk was absolutely fantastic and really swung the game in their favour, we weren’t able to contain him. That was probably the point of difference.”
In summing up, the Hollywoodbets Sharks XV coach admitted that, “Obviously very disappointed with the result, I don’t think the scoreboard was necessarily a true reflection of our performance. At 29-21 with 10 minutes to go, I thought we still had an opportunity to win the game and for 70 minutes, I felt we were in the game. We just needed to convert. I thought our kicking game gave us some reward and our transition game was really good.
“There were a lot of opportunities that we missed, particularly in that period from the second half to about 50 or 60 minutes, we had a couple of 22m entries that we didn’t convert into points and when we started to chase the game at the back end, things got a bit loose and the Toyota Cheetahs obviously capitalised on the opportunities they got.”
He explained that this is a team that is still finding their feet and it’s only their second game together, so he expects they will find cohesion and we will find a little bit of synergy as they play more.
“I’m incredibly proud of the team and the effort and fight they showed. I think if we didn’t have opportunities, there would be more concern, but the fact that we are creating opportunities and we had times in the game where we could have taken it away from them a bit is a massive positive.
“We’ll learn some tough lessons out of this, but when we imposed our DNA on them, there were some good moments, so we’ll continue to build on that
“The work going into next week will be about how we can convert those 22m entries and those opportunities into points, but we will be better going into our game against the DHL Stormers XXIII, having had a good gauge of where we are and which areas need to be fixed.”