By Lucky Vince Pienaar
The Sharks showed grit and character to beat Clermont by a single point.
When Eben Etzebeth is on fire, the entire team glows. He had a great game, leading from the front and lifting the entire team to perform as we always want the Sharks to play.
Once again, flyhalf Siya Masuku was the outstanding player. He made all the right decisions that gave the Sharks the go forward that it takes to win matches; and he put his body on the line way beyond what can be expected from an average sized flyhalf.
Unfortunately the question has to be asked: why has it taken so long for the Sharks management (looking at you Neil Powell and John Plumtree) to persevere with Curwin Bosch and Boeta Chamberlain with Siya Masuku hidden far away within the structures of Sharks rugby.
When a match is as close as this one, the question about which team was the best always comes up, and the feeling is that Clermont may have been the better team. But then, everybody knows that it was Oom Boy Louw, a man who battled with the English language, who famously said, “Looks at the scoreboard”.
Although it didn’t look good for the Sharks when Clermont scored three ties in the first 30 minutes with only Masuku’s boot keeping them on the scoreboard with six penalties.
It took until the 60th minute for the Sharks to score their first try when Vincent Koch forced his way over the tryline. Ten minutes later Makazole Mapimpi scored in the corner, and once again Masuku did the work with a tough conversion to give the Sharks that one point lead.
The Sharks take a famous one point victory into the final of the European Rugby Challenge Cup final on the 24th of May.
Hollywoodbets Sharks 32-31 Clermont
Tries Sharks: Vincent Koch, Makazole Mapimpi
Tries Clermont: Joris Jurand (2) Alex Newsome
Pictured above: Sharks
Image source: @springboks
