The Sharks have overcome the Western Force in another tight one at NIB Stadium.
The Match
A moment of madness by the home side swung the game decisively in the Sharks favour, but more on that later.
The early part of the game was a bit of an arm wrestle, with the Force having more than their share of ball, but without a lot of penetration or useful field position. By contrast the Sharks didn’t see the ball a huge amount in the first quarter, but when they did they had a territorial advantage. Indeed, the first time they got any meaningful ball inside the Force 22 they scored through Keegan Daniel.
It wasn’t an especially spectacular try, but one that has come to be expected of the Sharks: plenty of big bodies in motion, crashing the ball up through the phases until they went a pass wider of the ruck and Daniel went over. He actually almost bombed it and probably should have passed to his winger on the outside, but the lack of a solid hit on him from Sias Ebersohn meant he crashed over.
From then until half time the Force got their hands on the ball plenty more times, but again it was without a lot of direction or purpose. But then almost out of the blue they scored a a terrific try. A good lineout win off the top saw the ball hit Ebersohn moving forward at pace and he then threw a terrific flat ball to Kyle Godwin who got over the gain line, then delivered the ball to fullback Hayward. A great offload in the tackle to Godwin doing what all good 10/12’s should be doing (backing up) saw him crash over.
It was one of their best tries of the season and frankly it’s a little frustrating that we haven’t seen a bit more of it. In a funny way it was almost against the run of play, because up until that point the Sharks defence had been able to contain the Force attacking raids with relatively little fuss. Hopefully the Force brains trust will look at the tape from this game during the week and say to the players: “more of that please boys”.
The Force kicked a penalty to add to their score and they went to the sheds 10-7 up at half time.
The second half saw an awful lot of kicking and play ping-ponging between both teams 22’s. The Force seemed to show a lack of patience out there during this period (and skipper Matt Hodgson made mention of it after the game), where they bashed the ball up for a couple of phases and then went the boot with monotonous regularity. Unfortunately the kicking wasn’t of sufficiently high quality to pin the Sharks in their own half. In fact, they were content to hang back for the most part, receive the kick and ping it back with interest.
The game started to lose a bit of its shape too and the Force some composure with it. They simply weren’t getting anywhere against a canny and committed opposition defence, even though the Sharks were right on the borderline of being offside on a number of occasions. Still, that’s no excuse. The leaders in the team normally recognise this and adjust the pattern of play accordingly.
The real problem came in the last quarter for the home side when they were trying to clear the ball from a 22 restart. They threw the ball around a bit behind the line before Pek Cowan took a short drop out, the ball was cleared in a hurried and untidy manner and the receiving player got isolated after trying to break the line.
The Sharks defence was far too organised for a ploy like this, committed numbers to the breakdown and turned the ball over. From there they were able to spread the ball quickly and scored through Riaan Viljoen and it was pretty much shut the gate.
At the risk of being overly critical, it was pretty brainless footy from the home team. It would be understandable to try a tactic like this if they were seven points down with less than ten minutes to go, but not in the 62nd minute. It’s important to point out that the game had been level up until this point and from then onwards the Force were having to chase ever harder. The Sharks just shut the game down in the last ten to fifteen minutes and left the Force to try ever more desperate ploys to score with time running out.
In the end they were left to rue yet another opportunity missed.
Photos c/o Greg Seaton
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The Game Changer
In this game it was obviously obviously the shocker in the Force 22 in the 62nd minute. It totally shifted the momentum away from the home side and effectively lost them the game.
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The G&GR MotM
Kyle Godwin had a super game and was the official MotM, but up until the 60th minute when he went off, I would have given it to Chris Alcock. He had a stellar game in the loose and laid on a couple of terrific hits in defence.
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Wallaby watch
I know it’s getting boring hearing about how much I rate Godwin, but he was brilliant again tonight. If he doesn’t play for Australia in the next season or so I’ll eat my hat.
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The Details
Sharks: 23 (Daniel, Viljoen tries; Lambies 2 cons; Lambie 2 pens) defeated Force: 13 (Godwin try; Hayward con; Hayward 2 pens)
Yellow cards: None
Refereee: James Leckie
