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Manie Libbok and Lukhanyo Am protest a decision (Gallo Images)
- Sharks assistant coach Brent Janse van Rensburg attributed his dismal performance against the Cheetahs to “jumping too many gears” at once.
- The Sharks fell in a 37-10 loss to the Cheetahs in Bloemfontein on Sunday afternoon.
- The victory put the Cheetahs within two logarithmic points of the Sharks, who occupy the final semifinal in fourth place.
Sharks assistant coach Brent Janse van Rensburg perfectly summed up his mediocre performance against the Cheetahs Sunday when he said they tried to “skip too many gears” while chasing the game.
Hardly the Sharks looked that uncomfortable in a game and were on the back foot from kickoff when a missed shot led Carl Wegner to land 30 seconds into the game.
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The visitors never really recovered and succumbed to a shocking 37-10 loss to the defending Currie Cup champions in the scorching heat of Bloemfontein.
“When you’re chasing a game, sometimes you get into the mental space where you just try things at all costs,” said Janse van Rensburg.
“You lose your cool to maybe change the car gears one at a time and not try to jump into fourth.
“A testament to that was right at the end, where we gave the Cheetahs a five point (extra point), whereas if we had kicked the ball we would have restricted them to a four-point win.
“We gave them that extra point just because we were trying to play too much.
“That’s appreciation of the game. Even if we scored a try, we wouldn’t have gotten an extra point from the game.
“Restricting the Cheetahs to a four-point win would have been more valuable to us than improving our point difference by seven points.”
Janse van Rensburg replaced head coach Sean Everitt on his trips to Free State, after the latter remained in Durban due to “Covid protocols.”
It’s unclear if Everitt could have had the magic to lift the Sharks even at halftime, when they were 27-10 down and looking down.
The Sharks didn’t scratch the score in the second half of a game in which it looked like the Cheetahs would score with almost every multiphase attack.
Janse van Rensburg said they had their moments, but failed to make them count.
“It was moments … if we took the two kickoffs that we lost and went out, and if we hadn’t lost those lineouts that we had on their try line in the second half, if we had established the maul better – I think we had a knockdown.” said Janse van Rensburg.
“Yaw Penxe was ready to give it a try. He could possibly have been more selfish and did it himself rather than pass it on to Werner Kok.
“If we had scored that try, for example, the pressure from the scoreboard would have taken the tension off.
“When the tension is released from the pressure of the scoreboard, it puts you in a different mental space, where you don’t feel like you have to chase the game.”
The victory put the Cheetahs within two logarithmic points of the Sharks, who occupy the last semifinal in fourth place.
