The Hollywoodbets Sharks have finished the URC regular season in third place after beating Scarlets 12-3 in their final round matchup at Hollywoodbets Kings Park on Saturday.
Although the Durbanites were placed fourth heading into the weekend, Glasgow Warriors’ 13-5 defeat at Leinster later in the evening has seen them leapfrog the defending champions to set up a home quarterfinal date with sixth-placed Munster in a fortnight’s time.
In what was a dreary old affair at the Shark Tank, coach John Plumtree lamented the amount of errors his side made but defended their desire.
“I don’t think there was a lack of us trying or our intent around what we were trying to do, it was more around our accuracy,” he said. “We had a lot of lineouts in the game, particularly in the first 30-minutes. We had a lot of possession, a lot of territory, but we couldn’t build any pressure with the ball.
“There were too many basic mistakes, and it got pretty frustrating for the boys. It almost looked like no matter how hard we tried, nothing was going well. Then it looked like defence was just dominating attack for both teams. It didn’t look like there was much space.
“It wasn’t much of a game of rugby to be honest.”
The stats certainly paint a picture, with 22-handling errors made between the teams in total on top of a massive 58-open field kicks from hand.
Said Plumtree: “We have to be better than that. The players are frustrated too. There were a few issues around our attack tonight with a bit of role clarity, a couple of times we kicked up our launches just through inaccuracies.
“It wasn’t a good performance from our side and we just have to look at the reason why and get better.”
Still, with four wins in succession now, the side does seem to be making a habit of getting over the line, something that will stand them in good stead as they gear up for the knockouts.
