Mitchell: “We’ve got to build on that each week”

“One of the things that I asked of the guys was that in order to move forward and give ourselves a chance we need to stay in the contest for a lot longer and I thought we did that,” said Sharks’ director of rugby John Mitchell after the game.

“We also showed more maturity than we did last week in the contest and we didn't get frustrated when we lost possession.

“An example of how much we’ve grown in a week was the way we defended our goal-line in the last 12 minutes and that gave us a sense of where we’ve got to head towards.

“The Premiership is not about being the most exciting team, it’s about being a collective team that is prepared to work together and hang in there and I think Saturday was a good starting point,” the former All Blacks head coach declared.

“What we’ve got to do now is build on that each week. I’m looking at this fortnight to try and establish the team mix to go into the Christmas and New Year period in the Premiership.

“Within a week of getting my hands on them we’ve had a look at our method and our roles and the knowledge was a lot better and they were able to hang in the contest,” Mitchell added.

“I said to the boys it was a privilege to play against such a side. It’s quite exceptional in world rugby to lay against a side that has so many icons like Bakkies Botha, Mat Giteau and Jonny Wilkinson “They are special days in one’s rugby life so in terms of moving forward and preparing to save our Premiership status I couldn’t think of a better side to test the character of the group.”