Two injuries and two yellow cards in the first half turned the coastal derby. JP Pietersen on the scrum battle, the fight his side showed and the shift in focus to Lyon in the EPCR Challenge Cup.
Hollywoodbets Sharks head coach JP Pietersen pointed to a big swing in fortunes with the loss of four players in succession in the first half which had a huge influence in the team’s competitiveness against a very good DHL Stormers side in their third round Vodacom United Rugby Championship clash on Saturday.
“It’s hard to find highlights, the Stormers played really well,” he admitted after the game. “We wanted a good set-piece but they dominated which was difficult.
“A positive we can take out of the game is that we stayed in the fight and every time we got into the 22, we scored. There was willingness and desire to fight for everything, but technically we just weren’t great.
“Defensively we have some things to work on.”
Pietersen confirmed that Vusi Moyo dislocated his shoulder and Eben Etzebeth took a knock to the knee, and losing both players was a big blow to the Hollywoodbets Sharks fortunes and a key turning point in the game.
“When we lost those two, the score was still 8-all and hanging in the balance, but then we had a scrum, and a scrum penalty against us on our ball, they went to the corner and scored, and then we got two yellow cards in the first half and that put us under huge pressure.
“So, we lost a lot of momentum and key guys to injury and yellow cards, and defending against a very good team with only 13 players was tough.”
Pietersen acknowledged that the scrums were a huge focus area of the game, saying, “If you look at the stats, they were probably amongst the best scrumming packs and it was always going to go 50-50 with the calls in a very pressured situation.
“It was a proper contest, sometimes we got them and then they came back at us. But it hurt us when they got the penalties and that swung the momentum. We also have to give credit to their maul, it was very good and something we need to get better at contesting.
“We knew it would be an emotional game for them and after what we did to them last year [winning both matches, home and away], we needed to set a platform. We did that, but losing the two players to injury, especially with Eben’s physicality and his contesting at lineout time, and then the yellow cards got us on the back foot, which put pressure on us and wasn’t part of the plan.
“So we were under the pump, just trying to survive and absorb what they threw at us. Credit to them, they put us under a lot of pressure.”
The coach admitted that there would be some introspection and work after this game as the focus now shifts to France and a match against Lyon in the group stages of the EPCR Challenge Cup on Saturday.
“We have to look at ourselves, there are positives and there are negatives, but we do need to look deeper into what we can do better. There is some good stuff and we can freshen the squad up. I was proud of the character shown, but it was unfortunate that we couldn’t score a fourth try for the bonus point.”
