Hollywoodbets Sharks head coach JP Pietersen was elated at the performance of his charges in their crushing 45-0 bounce back victory over Munster at Hollywoodbets Kings Park in the 13th round of the URC on Saturday.
The hosts scored seven tries while keeping the Limerick club scoreless to breathe new life into their playoff charge, though they will still have plenty of work to do given they remain in 11th and sit seven-points off the eighth-placed Bulls.
The Sharks were rocked by the late withdrawals of Ethan Hooker and Siya Kolisi, but had added motivation in the buildup with Makazole Mapimpi earning his 100th cap for the franchise. What transpired was a totally dominant performance against a Munster outfit that, admittedly, had to contend with their own fair share of disruption after arriving a day late following a flight cancellation.
Coming into this clash off the back of disappointing back-to-back away defeats at the Lions and Bulls, Pietersen said the improvement this week came down to work rate, and the rugby IQ of defence coach Joey Mongalo.
“You compare this to the Loftus game, it’s like day and night. I challenged the players about effort. And I think some of them, they think their effort is good enough, which it’s not if you look on the video what it shows.
“And today, we must give credit to coach Joey. He puts hours and hours of effort in and he’s a good defence coach. And the players can only show how good a coach he is if they buy in and show effort.
“And so I challenged them before the game: how physical can we be? And how much effort can we do? And you can see the boys were out on their feet and then we put the bench on. And it shows how much hunger the bench had to prove a point to not concede a try. It’s really special, and especially in a URC game.”
Even with their Springbok superstars starting on the bench, the Durbanites again shone at scrum time and earned four penalties in the first-half alone. They lead the tournament in this facet, boasting a remarkable success rate of 95%.
“You must give credit to Phato [Ganyane], Fez [Mbatha], and Hanro [Jacobs], and obviously the pack behind them,” said Coach JP of his side’s ongoing scrum success. “It takes always a collective to scrum well. It’s not one guy or three guys in front, it’s always a collective effort from the pack of eight. They wanted to make a statement today as a pack, and they did make a statement.
“And you must give it up to the young Phato—he’s only 23—he’s scrumming against international props. He did it against the Bulls, Stormers. And then again against the Bulls, against Wilco Louw. [Michael] Alaalatoa is also an international prop. So you must give it up to Phato, he works so hard, and to showcase it today, it’s really special to see all the hard work Phato’s put in is coming off.”
35-year-old veteran Mapimpi managed to bring up a century of games in style after touching down twice late on, and fellow former winger Pietersen couldn’t have been happier.
“To score two tries and you can see that man’s got a lot of speed still. He’s got plenty of rugby left. He’s a special human being, he’s showed it over and over. And to be at his age, still be that fast and run and he’s been professional as he is today.
“I told him as well, he’s one of my favourite players that I’ve watched now. And to show today what he can show us and I think there’s a lot more in him. And I will challenge him to give more. He could have scored a hat trick.”
Another back three player who thrived was teenage sensation Luan Giliomee, who started at fullback on debut and produced a superb display, scoring a try and executing a fantastic 50/ 22 in the absence of Aphelele Fassi and Jaco Williams.
“He’s a special kid,” said Pietersen. “I think if you look at his history, if you look at his schoolboy history from school, Framesby… special. And then obviously Blitzboks, he was good too, they won a tournament. And you can just see he’s got BMT. He belongs on that field; he doesn’t look out of place.
“That’s what I said before, I was excited to see this kid, and he showed us what he can do. He’s an unbelievable talent. And what was special today is like he played with Mapimpi on his 100th game, and it just showed what it takes to get to 100 caps. And Mapimpi can also look at it the other way when he made his debut, so it’s very special today.”
The side will now have plenty of momentum behind them as they prepare to tackle Cardiff next week.
