Sharks got a wake-up call

The Durban-based franchise relied on a last-gasp Curwin Bosch penalty to escape with the four points and du Preez believes they underestimated the Kings.

"I guess we underestimated them [the Kings] to a degree and I hope this was a big wake-up call [for us]. What was disappointing was that we played at home and that we disappointed the fans who came to support us.

"It was messy and we are not happy with the way we played. We did everything we shouldn't have done. I am not too sure how big the impact was of the first three weeks [of the competition] but we had a good week [in training].

"The Kings is a good team and should never be underestimated. We were hoping to win the game, so we are happy with that.

"This will be a big wake-up call for the players, the disappointing thing was the number of handling errors we made. It felt like we took a step backwards [from the Waratahs performance] but we will be ready for the Cheetahs [in the next match," du Preez said.

Du Preez felt that flyhalf Bernhard Janse van Rensburg endured a tough debut but that was by no means as a result of being out of his depth.

"I think his debut was tough. We could not get the forward and set-piece dominance we wanted, so that made it difficult for him. I am sure he will have learnt from it," he added.