Pietersen: Early Sharks replacements turn Cardiff clash

Prop Ox Nché once again made his presence felt when he came off the bench for the Sharks against Cardiff. Picture: Steve Haag Sports/Gallo Images Sharks head coach JP Pietersen said the decision to bring all three front row replacements on in the 30th minute made the difference in their United Rugby Championship victory against Cardiff. The Sharks were a player down and Cardiff had just taken a 12-7 lead at the time.

The result was set-piece dominance that allowed the home side to wrestle back momentum, take a 21-12 lead at the break, and then hold on through an error-strewn second halfto win 21-15at Kings Park on Saturday. The victory kept the Sharks’ playoff hopes alive as they moved one place up to 10th on the URC table with four games left. It also backed up their45-0 whitewash win over Munsterlast week, proving the shock result was not a fluke.

Cardiff had fought back from an early Phepsi Buthelezi try to put the hosts in danger in Durban. Pietersen said replacing Phatu Ganyane, Fez Mbatha and Hanro Jacobs with Ox Nché, Eduan Swart and Vincent Koch gave them scrum and maul dominance, seen immediately in Buthelezi rushing out of a maul for his second try. “We felt in the coaching box that we had to swing momentum by sending the front row on before half-time, to give us an edge.

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And flipping hell, it worked,” Pietersen said. “We took control of the game in the set-piece. We scrummed well, scrummed for penalties and we mauled well.” The Sharks also stole several lineouts, showing why they are the tournament’ssecond-best sidein this area statistically.

Still,the Sharkscould not convert their opportunities in the second half. Pietersen blamed the humidity for making the ball “slippery like a bar of soap”. “I think we did well to score three tries in those conditions, and in the second half we couldn’t get one pass to get over the line.

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