Preview: Sharks v Golden Lions

Editor

The Sharks face arguably their toughest challenge of the season when they host the Golden Lions in Durban on Friday.

The Sharks face arguably their toughest challenge of the season when they host the Golden Lions in Durban on Friday.

With just two rounds of matches left of the league stage of the competition, these two sides are in second and third place in the standings. After eight matches played, the Lions have 29 points while the Sharks are five points adrift.

After a bright start to the tournament, the Sharks went on a three-match winless streak – in which they drew with the Free State Cheetahs and lost to Griquas and the Pumas – but the defending champions have turned things around in recent weeks with victories over the Blue Bulls and Eastern Province Kings.

That augurs well ahead of the play-offs but although they’ve done in recent weeks, Sharks coach Brad Macleod-Henderson knows they are still far from reaching their ultimate goal for the season.

“We really want to peak on 25 October,” he told the Sharks’ official website.

“But we’ve played nicely the last two and a half games, we’ve been really comfortable with our performances.

“In the second half against Cheetahs we produced some great stuff, pretty much the whole game against Bulls we were happy with and then obviously the game against EP which went really well.

“In saying that, we know it’s a different challenge this week.”

The Sharks require a bonus point victory to draw level with the Lions on the table but Macleod-Henderson is just focused on winning the game.

“Look, you have to worry about the win first before you worry about bonus points,” he added.

“It is a clich