Sharks coach John Plumtree said his team did not mentally pitch up at Ellis Park on Saturday, and that the Lions fully deserved their 38-14 win.
“This was obviously was not what expected from each other,” the disappointed coach said after the match. “We let ourselves down, and our fans will be disappointed.
“It just shows that despite having had a good week of preparation physically, we did not nail it mentally,” Plumtree continued.
“To try and win a derby game away, you have to get the mental build up right. The boys will understand that after this.”
Plumtree said that the result proved that you can’t dwell on previous good performances.
“We showed lot of resilience to beat the Bulls in last week’s game, but the boys have to understand that that game is gone and you have to move on swiftly. The Lions were desperate, and were in a better space mentally.”
Plumtree said that the rainy conditions had no impact on the outcome of the game.
“We have no complaints about the weather. It was the same for them, and they got 38 points and we got 14.”
The Lions travel to the Sharks next week for the return fixture in Durban next Saturday, but Plumtree said he is not concerned about that game for now.
“We won’t worry too much about the next game right now. We need to digest this loss. It hurts, and we will have a good look at what went wrong. But certainly, we will be expecting a response from everyone.
“We will look inward… The players, the management, everyone, and make sure we learn from this and make sure it doesn’t happen again. We want to do well in this competition, so this is a massive wake-up call.”
But Plumtree did say that his team were looking forward to playing at home.
Against 1️⃣4️⃣ men, the Hollywoodbets @SharksRugby score their first points of the game 🦈#LIOvSHA | @Vodacom #URC | #OriginRound pic.twitter.com/EY6IFQmVKR
— vodacomrugby (@VodacomRugga) March 1, 2025
“Our last three games have been away, so we look forward to playing in front of our fans again. A week is a long time in rugby, and this time next week, we can’t be feeling like this.”
Plumtree said the result was also disappointing from the point of view of the SA Shield within the United Rugby Championship.
“We wanted to win the SA Shield, but if the Bulls beat the Stormers this evening, they also win the Shield. It could be unachievable now. We just have to pick ourselves up, and look forward to next week.
“We have to look at our preparation mentally and physically. We felt we had a good week, and came to Ellis Park confident, so this was unexpected.
Siya stamps his mark, right on the hooter 👊#LIOvSHA | @Vodacom #URC | #OriginRound pic.twitter.com/82iMoOAiU0
— vodacomrugby (@VodacomRugga) March 1, 2025
“All credit to the Lions. They wanted it more. They won most of the collisions, and just worked hard around the park.
“When you play a team in that space and you are not matching it, then you can come second badly. That is what happened.”
Points-Scorers
Lions 38 – Tries: PJ Botha, Francke Horn, Edwill van der Merwe, Richard Kriel, Jarod Cairns, Gianni Lombard. Conversions: Lombard (4).
Sharks 14 – Tries: Ethan Hooker, Siya Kolisi. Conversions: Jordan Hendrikse (2).