Hanrahan seals victory for Connacht in tense Sharks affair
IMPORTANT WIN: Connacht defeated Sharks in a tense affair in Durban to secure an important win on the road. Pic: Shaun Roy/Sportsfile
Connacht’s brilliant start to the season continued in Durban as they made it four wins from five since Pete Wilkins took charge during the summer.
And in the process they enhanced their remarkable record in South Africa as they carved out a fifth win in ten games there in the league.
Man of the match JJ Hanrahan hailed their perseverance as they came from behind to sink the Sharks and add this triumph to their wins away to the Lions, Cheetahs and Southern Kings (twice).
“The ball was greasy, we weren’t at our best, we felt the heat a bit but the good thing about this group is that we stuck in there,” said Hanrahan.
“Sometimes we were just surviving and hanging in there but credit to the boys up front, credit to the work done off the ball. We talk about carrying for players, working off the ball for players, you could see that all day. The bench had a great impact and we are very happy about that win,” added the out-half.
Connacht made the most of what they created and led 10-5 at the interval after a scrappy opening half.
The Sharks, desperate for a result after losing all four games in Europe, looked dangerous with ball in hand in their first game of the season at King’s Park but John Plumtree’s men, minus all of their frontline World Cup players, lacked accuracy and penetration.
Connacht, despite the crippling humidity, maintained high tempo from the outset and got a great start when summer signing from the Leinster academy Sean O’Brien drove over for his first try for the province after seven minutes.
Hanrahan added the conversion and while Sharks enjoyed plenty of possession they struggled to find a way through the Connacht defence.
They eventually got over nine minutes from the break when former Springbok Sikhumbuzo Notshe got over to score an unconverted try as Curwin Bosch somehow missed the easy conversion to kickstart a dreadful sequence of errors from the out-half.
Connacht led by double scores at the break when Hanrahan added a penalty, but they had to withstand enormous pressure after the restart and were grateful for some basic errors in the Sharks’ armoury.
They lost lock Oisin Dowling to a yellow card after 49 minutes and the Sharks scored with a minute through a comedy of errors when Connacht stopped playing presuming a succession of ricochets had resulted in a knock-on and they paid the price when winger Werner Kok raced around to score under the posts, with Bosch converting to edge them 12-10 in front.
Connacht, with Finlay Bealham their only World Cup player back so far, saturated anything Sharks managed to conjure after that and excellent work from David Hawkshaw and replacement hooker Dave Heffernan led to Bosch bring pinged for holding on after opting to try run from deep through a crowd of players.
Hanarahan kept his nerve to land the difficult penalty from 40 metres on the right to edge them back in front.
From the restart Bosch was bundled into touch after again taking the wrong option before Plumtree hauled him ashore.
But his replacement Boeta Chamberlain didn’t improve matters and he missed a penalty from the 22 seven minutes from time and after that Connacht closed out the win on the offensive to embellish their impressive record in South Africa and continue their great start to the season with a fourth win from five despite not having Mack Hansen and Bundee Aki back yet from the World Cup.
Tries: S Notshe, W Kok. Con: C Bosch.
Try: S O’Brien. Cons: JJ Hanrahan. Pens: JJ Hanrahan (2).
: A Fassi; W Kok, L Am, F Venter (c) (R Janse van Rensburg 67), A Dyantyi; C Bosch (B Chamberlain 70), C Wright; N Mchunu, D Richardson, C Oosthuizen (H Jacobs 66); C Rahl (J Labuschagne 62), E van Heerden; J Venter, P Buthelezi, S Notshe.
: T O’Halloran; B Ralston, T Farrell, C Forde (D Hawkshaw 41), A Smith (J Porch 30); JJ Hanrahan, C Reilly (C Blade 61); D Buckley (P Dooley 57), T McElroy (D Heffernan 52), F Bealham (D Robertson-McCoy 57); O Dowling, J Joyce (D Murray 60); C Prendergast, C Oliver (c) (S Hurley-Langton 52), S O'Brien.
: C Evans (Wales).
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