Today’s Vodacom United Rugby Championship derby clash between the Hollywoodbets Sharks and DHL Stormers at Hollywoodbets Kings Park offers the perfect opportunity to do the double over the coastal rivals.
Halfway through the South African set of fixtures, the Hollywoodbets Sharks have an opportunity to really stake a claim for the South African Shield, looking to retain their table-topping status and the Shield trophy they won last year.
For head coach JP Pietersen this match offers the opportunity of backing one good performance up with another one.
“We spoke about that right after last week’s performance, about doubling-up and the fact that you’re only as good as your last game, Monday was about refreshing the squad and identifying what we need to work on to improve,” he explained.
For Pietersen, despite last week’s emphatic bonus point victory, there are always areas of improvement that the team can work on, and he identified discipline as a vital aspect of focus.
“The penalty count last week was a bit high and we could have controlled that better, not giving away soft penalties, that was one of the key things we’ve spoken about this week.”
And even with last week’s win, the team acknowledges that victory means nothing if they don’t come out and show that they are a team capable of back-to-back victories over the Cape Town rivals.
“It’s a clean sheet this week, the difference is that we’re at home and the challenge is to double it up.”
Looking at the log, the Hollywoodbets Sharks are in 11th place and that’s not where they want to be, so this game is all about changing the status quo.
“We need to win every game from now on to give ourselves a shot at the play-offs. We are desperate for wins, we know we need to perform if we want to win and we know we are up against a very good side.
“It’s going to be a big challenge for us.”
Although there are numerous changes to the match 23 this week, Pietersen believes he has the team to counter what the opposition bring.
“The DHL Stormers pride themselves on the set-piece, scrums and mauling, and the game is going to be played in humid conditions [the weather-man predicts 30C conditions] and with that, the slippery ball and a few errors, so it’s going to be a scrum battle, lineouts, aerial ball contesting.”
With a number of wins and close results, the Hollywoodbets Sharks are surely on an upwards trajectory, and the coach
“You can see from our results, we are improving and there is belief. Andre [Esterhuizen] is leading well, he has a good leadership group around him, both on the field and in training, so I must complement the leaders for keeping the standards high and making sure we work hard.”