Sharks coach JP Pietersen is proud of how his team rallied after four straight defeats and are now aiming for a third consecutive win in their final fixture.
The Sharks may be out of the Currie Cup already, but they are aiming to make it three wins out of three in KwaZulu-Natal when they host the Pumas in their last round-robin match on Friday night.
Last year’s winners, the Sharks backed a young side this year and lost their first four games. But they never gave up, finally beating the season’s whipping boys Western Province 29–21 in their bottom-of-the-table clash in Durban, and then Boland Cavaliers 33–31 in Pietermaritzburg on the weekend.
Their second win came thanks to a late penalty kick by URC flyhalf Siya Masuku, who came into the side for his first match, and ended Boland’s three-game winning streak.
Sharks ‘built different’
Sharks coach JP Pietersen said his team have done the hard work. Now they must carry their momentum into their seventh and final Currie Cup match.
“This team shows what we mean when we talk about being ‘built different’,” Pietersen said. “That was our campaign [when we] didn’t get our results. We were in a bit of a dark place.”
The coach said he was “unbelievably proud” of how his players kept showing up, which led to them surpassing their limits.
“They come with solutions, keep wanting to be better. It just shows, if you stay in the fight, if you stay consistent and you work hard and you want something, you want to be built different. It just shows today what it means to be built different.”
‘They say call a friend’
Pietersen praised his young hooker Jacques Marais, who earned man of the match for his two tries. On Masuku’s heroics, the Sharks coach joked, “They say call a friend. You’d probably call Siya Masuku to come for this moment.
“He’s a match-winner, we’ve seen it over the years for the Sharks. I’m just grateful. I said in the press conference before I didn’t expect any fireworks from Siya Masuku. Well, he did some fireworks today. I’m just happy for him. He deserved it. But Jean Smith played well as a 10 too.”
Pietersen said the Sharks would refocus before taking on the Pumas, who are fresh from beating Western Province 39–13 in Cape Town.
“Our last game at home, the Pumas. We’d love to finish well in our Currie Cup campaign, and give our home crowd a good performance.”
