Sharks' plans fell into place against 'Canes
The win was an important one for the Sharks in their bid for a play-off place. They are just one point behind the Lions in Africa Conference Two – however, the team from Johannesburg have played one game less.
"I think it was a very good performance, mostly because of the quality of opposition," he explained after the match.
"I thought they were equally good today, they asked a lot of questions with ball in hand although they'll feel that they didn't convert all their opportunities.
"I'm really happy with our game management, the way we planned for them worked out quite nicely," he added.
At half-time, the teams were on level-pegging, but JP Pietersen's first try came at a crucial time, just before the break.
"It made a big difference to the confidence," said Gold.
"The Hurricanes were definitely the better team in the first half, certainly for 35 minutes of the half. Then for us to get that try gave us a bit of confidence that all our defence wasn't in vain. Although the earlier [Paul Jordaan] try was disallowed, we took confidence from the fact that we were able to hurt them from turnover ball.
"After half-time, we just needed to be patient in a close game and I'm proud of how hard the guys worked in the second half for the victory."
A number of players probably played their best game of the season so far Sharks. One of those was veteran Keegan Daniel.
"He's [Keegan Daniel a stalwart and brings a huge amount of experience, he has a cool, calm head and is a leader within the team; I thought he was outstanding," said Gold. "But so too were the Du Preez [Daniel and Jean-Luc] brothers, I thought they were next level. Garth April was exceptional, Andre Esterhuizen must have comfortably made 20 tackles. It was a good team effort, everyone put their hands up and tried hard.
"Keegan's decision-making and reading the opposition hooker were outstanding, he got up and asked a lot of questions of a useful hooker at line-out time. That made a big difference, it's been our achilles heel in a few games, our line-out capitulated against the Lions, our scrum has creaked at certain times.
"You need that set-piece to launch and it’s something we know we’ve been poor at. We put a lot of work and energy into that."
Source: @TheSharksZA
