Cheetahs front row have work to do
Cheetahs coach Naka Drotske admitted that his front row have some work to do this week before their Currie Cup semifinal against the Sharks.
The Free State side set up the play-off in Durban on Saturday by beating the Blue Bulls 22-7 in Bloemfontein to knock them out of the competition.
However, they battled for consistency at scrum-time, with Coenie Oosthuizen blown up regularly, and Drotske admitted that they would need to look carefully at that area this week, with an experienced all-Bok front row waiting for them at Kings Park.
“Coenie is a Springbok prop and part of a Springbok front row with Adriaan Strauss and Trevor Nyakane there,” Drotske said of Oosthuizen's game.
“We will work through the video of the scrums and communicate with Marius Jonker on what went wrong there.
“But I am not to worried. These are all things that can be rectified during the week,” he said.
"Another concern was their discipline, with replacement prop Schalk van der Merwe shown a red card for a dangerous tackle.
However, Drotske said he was proud of the defensive resolve his side showed to hold off the Blue Bulls, which he believes will stand them in good stead for the knock-out stage of the competition.
The Cheetahs gave a defensive performance worthy of a spot in the semifinals, stopping the visitors on their own goal-line a number of times.
In contrast, the Cheetahs scored three times, including a superb interception by flyhalf Elgar Watts and a spectacular individual try by captain and hooker Adriaan Strauss.
“For us it is great that we are in the semifinals. I am very proud of the guys, especially the effort they put in on defence.
“We tackled the Bulls back and were solid around the break downs. We also managed to counter their driving mauls pretty well, something we worked on the last couple of weeks,” he said.
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