The Hollywoodbets Sharks faced an uphill battle in their opening Vodacom United Rugby Championship fixture against Connacht, with exhausting rugby and then travel demands that showed in the second half.
There’s no doubting just how much the players have had to give of themselves in the last three weeks as they closed out a successful Carling Currie Cup campaign before long haul travel to Ireland to start the URC tournament against one of the top sides.
“We started pretty scratchily, but once we got our game going, we were pretty good,” explained head coach John Plumtree after the game in the harbour city of Ireland’s west coast, founded 900 years ago.
After conceding an early try, Plumtree’s charges scored 27 points without reply to build up a sizable 20-point lead by half-time. This demonstrated the team’s ability and firepower. But it was the second half that underlined just how fatiguing a combination of the 100-minute Carling Currie Cup semi-final, the final and then intercontinental travel, with little opportunity to train in the lead-up to the tournament opener.
“We did some good stuff and built a nice half-time lead, but in the second half, we really looked low on energy and got quite slow.
“We got cleaned out at the breakdown, the physicality wasn’t quite there.”
With local knowledge of their home, 5G pitch, the Irish had a mountain of work ahead of them, but against a tiring Hollywoodbets Sharks side, they had enough in the bank to fight back and claim victory.
“Connacht got their tails up, they probably played a little differently in the second half, they kicked over the top of us and tried to come through us,” Plumtree continued. “The fact that we couldn’t stop their maul tries was a big part of the game.”
The Hollywoodbets Sharks coach admitted that a result like this is a big learning opportunity, although there are certain factors that were outside of their control, like playing in Ireland in their first game and competing in the Currie Cup knock-out stages so close to the URC.
“We have to take the lessons out if it,” he admitted.
“In this part of the world, if we don’t get our breakdown right, and if we don’t get our set-piece right, then we’re going to struggle.
“So we’ll learn from all of that and look forward to the next game.”
The Hollywoodbets Sharks now travel to Newport in Wales to take on the Dragons who have lost their opening two matches and, like the Hollywoodbets Sharks, will feel they have a point to prove.
The two teams meet at the 8700 capacity Rodney Parade Stadium on Saturday, kick-off scheduled for 6.15pm.
The post Back to Business in the VURC appeared first on The Sharks Durban.
Match Report: Connacht Snatch the Win:
The Hollywoodbets Sharks went down to Connacht in Galway in a quite surreal opening Vodacom United Rugby Championship clash on Saturday evening.
In a game of two halves, the Hollywoodbets Sharks blew Connacht away in a commanding first half performance, but the Irish team fought back well in the second period to snatch what had appeared to be an unlikely victory given the events of the opening 40.
Connacht opened the scoring inside the opening five minutes, keeping the visiting Durbanites pinned in their 22 from the kick-off and ensuring their territorial advantage was turned into points off a driving maul that set up the opening seven pointer.
Connacht made life difficult for the Hollywoodbets Sharks in the ensuing period, before the Durban team started to build momentum, earning a couple of penalties that took them out of their 22 and deep inside enemy territory. A penalty kicked to touch and then the effective lineout saw the ball quickly recycled and spread to the midfield where a storming run from Andre Esterhuizen was simply too powerful for the defences and he cruised through for his team’s first try inside the second quarter, with Siya Masuku equalising with the conversion.
Connacht messed up the ensuing kick-off, handing the Hollywoodbets Sharks a scrum on the halfway line. Powering their way at the Connacht pack, a penalty was awarded and long-range expert Jordan Hendrikse had no trouble converting to give his side a 10-7 lead.
On the half hour mark, Esterhuizen powered his way over for his second try, a high intensity attack taking possession down the touchline and then the forwards rumbling the ball up and the big centre simply too strong for two defenders to stop. Masuku converted for a 17-7 lead.
The Hollywoodbets Sharks continued to heap on the pressure, Hendrikse striking a 63m penalty after the Connacht players were caught offsides and a 13-point lead with five minutes of the half remaining was just reward for their determined play.
The damage continued as Gerbrandt Grobler was next on the scoreboard, Connacht infringing at lineout time to hand the Hollywoodbets Sharks the perfect position from which to launch a driving maul and although the TMO was asked to rule, the referee was happy with the effort. Masuku was bang on target from out wide and there was only the kick-off to negotiate before half-time.
Taking a 20-point lead into the changerooms was a well-deserved, if somewhat unexpected result after the opening quarter hour when Connacht had dominated proceedings, but were blow away by the ferocity of the Hollywoodbets Sharks who took a three-try-to-one, 27-7 lead into the break.
Connacht started the second half as they had the first with an early try, a patient build-up before a chip and chase that saw them over for their second try under the posts to chip away at the 20-point lead.
Try number three came five minutes later, pressure applied in the Hollywoodbets Sharks 22 finally coming to fruition from a penalty sent to touch and then a patient maul to go over in the corner and reduce the deficit to 27-19.
Connacht struck for the third time, on this occasion an intercept of a long pass when the Hollywoodbets Sharks were close to scoring themselves and the successful conversion made it a one-point game with 25 minutes remaining.
Going into the final 10 minutes, Connacht had a TMO-referred try denied, but there had been penalty advantage for off-sides on defence of the tryline and from the ensuing tap-and-go, they managed to maul the ball over to take the lead they had relinquished in the first half. The conversion gave them a 33-27 lead.
With time almost up, Connacht earned a penalty which they sent through the posts to hand themselves an unassailable lead.
Masuku kicked a penalty in the last action of the game which reduced the gap to six points to earn his team a losing bonus point out of a tough clash.
The post Match Report: Connacht Snatch the Win appeared first on The Sharks Durban.
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Quick Durban KwaZulu-Natal Fact: Provincial Government – The KwaZulu-Natal’s provincial government sits in the legislative buildings in Pietermaritzburg. The site where the legislative buildings are situated was occupied by St Mary’s Church, which was built in the 1860s. A new church was built at the corner of Burger Street and Commercial Road, and opened in 1884. The old building was demolished in 1887 to provide space for the legislative complex. The foundation stone of the new legislative building was laid on 21 June 1887, to commemorate Queen Victoria’s Golden Jubilee. The building was completed two years later. On 25 April 1889, the Governor of Natal, Sir Arthur Havelock, opened the first Legislative Council session in the new building. When governance was granted to Natal in 1893, the new Legislative Assembly took over the chamber that was used by the Legislative Council since 1889. Further extensions to the parliamentary building were made. The building was unoccupied until 1902, when it was used without being officially opened, due to the fact that the country was engulfed in the Anglo-Boer war. The war also affected the Legislative Assembly, which had to move the venue of its sittings when the chamber was used as a military hospital.
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