Sharks want a home run

Sharks coach John Plumtree has called for his team to earn a home semifinal by winning both of their remaining matches at Kings Park.

The Durban side slumped to a demoralising defeat in Johannesburg last week after leading the Lions in the second half, and Plumtree is aware that unless they turn Kings Park into a fortress in the coming weeks they risk falling off the pace.

"If we want to have a home semifinal, winning both remaining games at home has to be our goal and that is still achievable, but we are going to have to execute better than we did against the Lions," he said.

Plumtree said that a win over the Blue Bulls in Durban on Friday will be crucial if his team want to take meaningful momentum into the play-off stage of the Currie Cup.

"Against the Bulls at home this weekend is a big game, it’s going to be huge," said Plumtree. "It's now the run-in to the play-offs and with three games to go, you can't afford to drop one and especially not a home game.

"To drop two games at this point in the competition would be disastrous, so it's a huge match for us this weekend," he said.

The Sharks coach was frustrated with his team's sloppiness on attack against the Lions and  expects them to be far more ruthless against the Bulls on Friday.

"We were obviously pretty frustrated, we had opportunities to win that game and we just weren't accurate enough in our execution, especially 15, 20 metres out from their tryline. That was a big disappointment for us because we did enough to win that game," he said.