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Western Province may have secured his place in the Currie Cup play-offs, but there will be no shortage of motivation when they face the Sharks in their final league game at Newlands on Saturday.
The dramatic 31-29 win against defending champion Cheetahs in Bloemfontein saw Western Province move to second in the standings, but they know they will have to beat the Sharks on Saturday if they want to host a semi-final the following week.
Head coach John Dobson said his team will be highly motivated when they face the Durban team as they look to make sure this is not the last game they play in Newlands with the western province and the Stormers are expected to move to the Cape Town stadium this year. .
“The first thing was to play in the semifinals, I think that applies to all teams and we have achieved it. Now we have to determine the place,” he told the WP website.
“It is a good reflection of the effort that the players have made that we are in a position to determine the venue for next week’s game. It is not that we are scratching in fourth place, we will decide where the next semifinal is played.” Saturday.
“We are really looking forward to that game, playing in Newlands. It’s quite powerful, our motivation is to make sure that next Saturday is not the last game in Newlands and I think they will find us responding well to that.”
Dobson was impressed with the character his team displayed to close out a win with the final kick of the game at Bloemfontein, although they could have made things easier by taking a 17-9 lead at the half-time break.
“It was a very tactical game, a real South African derby. It was a real test match in terms of the Currie Cup,” he said.
“It was a really tough rugby match and coming out with a win was fantastic for us.
“I thought our discipline was excellent in the first half and I thought we lost it for about 10 or 15 minutes in the second half. It was very disappointing that we once again made a game where we could have walked away from them in a thriller. . “
Captain Steven Kitshoff praised the forward group’s effort in a commanding display, adding that the team will have learned some valuable lessons from their experiences in the second half against an energetic Cheetahs team.
“In the first half especially, there was a lot of set pieces in a proper test match style and we played well on the territory and got the score going,” he said.
“I felt like we had control of the set piece in the first 50 minutes, we missed a bit in the second half, but overall we can be very proud of the forwards because of the heart and guts they showed.
“You can’t disconnect for a second, especially against a counterattack team like the Cheetahs who have a death back of three.
“Those moments are definitely a learning experience and the guys will realize that you can’t tune out for a second in a game like that.”
– WP Rugby
