Sharks wary of consistent Lions

 

Both the Sharks and Lions are coming off massive victories over the weekend, but as they prepare to clash in Durban assistant coach Sean Everitt understands the dangers posed by the visitors who have pretty much the same team all year long.

 

“The Lions haven’t really been disrupted in the Currie Cup at all, they’ve had pretty much the same team – bar Warren Whitely – from the Super Rugby competition, so they’ve had continuity,” he explains.

 

“But we’re getting there at the moment and something we’re proud of is that the guys are starting to play well together.

 

"The Lions are always going to be a difficult prospect, especially being one of the better scrummaging teams in the country at the moment.

 

"Obviously, they play a lot of rugby, and with that comes risks, so hopefully we can capitalise and defend well against them.”

 

After the Lions and Western Province matches, come the semifinals. The Sharks are well-placed to finish in the top four, but they would dearly love a home semifinal, which is not going to prove easy in the next two weeks.

 

“After the losses to the Pumas and Griquas, we were obviously very concerned, especially Griquas at home – we were very disappointed about that – but you can’t look back and talk about ifs, ‘if we had won those games there wouldn’t be pressure this week’.

 

"We would still need to win these last two pool games if we wanted a home semifinal anyway.

 

“But we have an opportunity to rectify things; if we beat the Lions this week, we go level on log points, although their points-differential will be slightly better than ours.

 

"We’ll still be in with a shout if we beat Western Province and the Lions slip up in the final round, so anything can still happen.”