Hollywoodbets Sharks centre Andre Esterhuizen believes that his side will bounce back against Scarlets in round five of the URC at Hollywoodbets Kings Park on Saturday if they remain rooted in their game plan.
The Durban outfit are currently ranked 14th heading into this clash against the bottom-placed Llanelli side following a demoralising 26-34 defeat to Ulster last weekend, a loss the Springbok bruiser says they haven’t been taking lightly.
“Obviously it’s been a tough week,” said the 31-year-old.
“We didn’t perform how we wanted to last week. I think we weren’t cohesive enough, we made a lot of individual errors which impacts the team.
“I think the boys responded well, we had some hard meetings on Monday, and we had a hard look at ourselves. But it’s all about the next game, we can’t change what has happened, so we’re looking forward to this game against Scarlets before the big break. We need to rectify things.”
Esterhuizen was one of the Sharks’ few bright sparks against Ulster and scored after a brutal bounce of hooker Rob Herring in the second-half. With the competition heading into its month-long November hiatus following this weekend’s action, it’s vital for John Plumtree’s side to earn a first win of the campaign, something Esterhuizen believes will come if the players can keep with what they work on in midweek.
“The key message is everyone getting on the same page so that we can play to the level we know we can play at. It’s no use having a superstar team if we don’t play like one and we don’t play together. Everything revolves around the team, we need to stick together whether it goes well or badly.
“As soon as things go bad, we start to go on different paths and everyone starts to find the solution on their own, that’s where things are getting worse.”
Dwayne Peel’s Scarlets arrive on the east coast in even worse straits than their hosts, having lost each of their three matches this term and coming off the back of a 29-18 reverse against the Lions in Johannesburg.
It is the Sharks that have won three of the four head-to-heads between the teams, with the latest coming in a 12-3 victory in Durban in May. Given Scarlets’ penchant for fast-paced footy, Esterhuizen reckons the state of the breakdown will be a deciding factor come Saturday.
“Every time we’ve played them they make the game quite messy because they like it loose and they like to play off turnovers. We expect a hard physical battle, always when you play a Welsh side, and obviously they’ve got a lot of flair as well; they like attacking rugby. We just need to counter that and play to our strengths.”
Kick-off is at 4pm.
