Province loss won't hurt us says Mongalo

REACTION: Despite the thrashing at the hands of Western Province over the weekend, Sharks head coach Joey Mongalo was adamant that the 5-44 loss in the last round of the Currie Cup in Cape Town would not hurt his team as they prepare for their home semifinal against the Pumas.

Mongalo’s side saw their seven-match winning run end abruptly at the hands of Province.

During the post-match press conference, Mongalo took the blame of the loss on his shoulders, saying he made the decision to rest the bulk of the players who have been in action for the last 14 weeks.

"We will literally will not speak about this game. It's a new day, a new team, everything. This won't hurt us," he said firmly.

Mongalo explained why he decided to take on Western Province with a new team. "We've been playing for 14 weeks straight without a breather with no easy games.

"We are probably the only team that went into today (Saturday), that could rest players. So if you've got that competitive advantage and you don't use it, then I've got to look at myself and I'm saying, 'how am I thinking about this thing?' I want to be a leader that is not monotonous and say the same stuff. I want to back my gut and my understanding about the game.

"If you look at the Griffons, the way they played against the Lions, they were within ten points of winning the game. So every week is a test match that you must win and win and win.

Mongalo said as a coching side they got something wrong, while one or two of the players in action will also be disappointed with their lack of fight.

"I want to wear it (the loss) squarely on my myself. We have a good machine going and then I did a risk reward thing to give guys a break and put pressure on a group to have three training sessions and ask them to come play here against the finalists of the United Rugby Championship.

"We've got fifteen guys back home who are sharp and getting ready for the semifinal and who are not scarred by this. We weren't expecting it to be like a romantic good game rugby. We were expecting to see fight and we probably didn't see enough of that.

"This team has faced adversity plenty of times before so it's not like we're looking at each other wondering what has happened. It was impossible for me to expect them to be sharp after three training sessions. But one-on-one tackles, a carry, an effort to catch-up, so the effort part and physicality - you can never make an excuse for that, never ever."

Mongalo explained that in his head, going into training this week, he is trying to separate the two different teams, namely the one that brought them to the semifinal, and the one that lost against Province.

"I don't even think we will do a review of this game. There were one or two sequences that went really well that we want to replicate next week. We will take that and put it in the memory bank."