Five wins in six matches – Lions have Sharks’ number in the URC
· Citizen
The Lions have to now be considered the Sharks’ bogey team after they picked up their fifth win in six outings over the Durban side with their 34-22 United Rugby Championship (URC) victory at Ellis Park on Saturday.
That includes three straight home bonus point wins, and two away victories, while their sole loss was a 25-22 defeat against them in Durban last season.
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Their form on the Highveld has been the highlight, with the Lions picking up commanding wins, with a 40-10 thrashing, followed by a 38-14 thumping, and then this past weekend’s good result again highlighting their dominance.
The Lions‘ wins at the coast have been a lot tighter; a 20-18 result two seasons ago, followed by a last gasp 23-22 win last month.
The most impressive thing about these results is that the Sharks have been close to full strength on a few of those occasions, as seen at the start of January, when their starting XV boasted Ox Nche, Bongi Mbonambi, Siya Kolisi, Grant Williams, Andre Esterhuizen, Edwill van der Merwe and Aphelele Fassi.
Despite this superb run, Lions coach Ivan van Rooyen firmly denied that they could be considered the Sharks’ bogey team, choosing rather to focus on his team’s performance.
Won’t be sidetracked
“No, we won’t get sidetracked by (talk of) that. I do feel if we don’t get one or two things right against them (the Sharks), with their defence and aggression they can really put you under pressure,” said Van Rooyen.
“If you look at the two Stormers games (that the Sharks won), they really suffocated them with their kicking game and their set piece did well. So I am proud of our reaction (from their big Bulls loss) and our plans (that came off).”
For the Sharks, their three-game winning run came to a shuddering halt, although they were missing a slew of their Springbok stars who are following Bok resting protocols, but coach JP Pietersen readily admitted that his team just weren’t good enough.
“It was a poor performance. It was one of those games where we would have one positive and then two negatives. We were our own worst enemies,” explained Pietersen.
“We got a yellow card (to scrumhalf Jaden Hendrikse), and they scored two tries, but did that cost us the game? There were several other areas where we were not up to scratch.”
Both teams will now gear up for another round of local URC derbies, with the Lions hosting the Stormers at Ellis Park and the Sharks travelling to Pretoria to take on the Bulls at Loftus this coming weekend.