Sharks grit their teeth

The Sharks managed to hold on for a hard-earned 17-10 win over the Western Force in their Super 14 opener in Durban on Friday.

Beaten finalists last year, the Sharks almost choked again as they allowed a comfortable 14-3 lead to slip away and required a late long-range penalty by the mercurial Francois Steyn to seal the game.

There were two early changes. Frédéric Michalak did not play after all. Instead Steyn moved to fly-half and Stefan Terblanche came in as full-back.

Nathan Sharpe withdrew from the Force side with food poisoning. Tom Hockings took his place at lock.

Even contest

The Sharks were better than the Force at scrums and line-outs though the visitors may have been better at the tackle.

The hosts missed more tackles. In particular they found Drew Mitchell a handful. He certainly turned JP Pietersen inside out. The Force won the penalty count 7-3. In fact in the first half they did not concede a single penalty.

The Force scored first when Jacques Botes was penalised for a silly late bump. Shepherd goaled after 18 minutes.

The Sharks were not at all creative with the possession they got, content to see Ruan Pienaar kicking it high all over the field.

When Mitchell cleared weakly, the Sharks had a line-out about 27 metres from the Force line. They threw in and mauled - a long, sinuous maul that marched down the field until Botes flung himself to ground for a try. Pienaar converted.

Just before half-time the Force had a promising moment when Matt Giteau kicked wide across the field for Nick Cummins.

Henno Mentz, whose hands were brittle, dropped the ball and Cummins was off. The defence held but it was the Force's best attacking moment in the half.

The Force were better in the second half but it was the Sharks who scored. They won a turn-over and Waylon Murray did well.

A tackle produced a free kick and Pienaar tapped and went right. The pass came at Brad Barritt at the same time as a defender but the centre flicked it on perfectly to Terblanche who cut in on an angle and scored. Pienaar converted to make it 14-3 after 52 minutes.

Battled back

However, the away side fought back. Rory Kockott's high kick was deflected by Ryan Kankowski into the path of Scott Staniforth, who grabbed it gratefully and headed straight for the posts. He gave it to Giteau who in turn passed on to Luke Holmes who plunged over under the posts.

At that stage the visitors were in sight of victory, but that was as close as they got.

They had a moment when Scott Fava intercepted a pass from Botes and set off down the field. As the faster men close in on him he gave to Cummins but there was rangy lock Albert van den Berg to mow him down 10 metres from the line.

When Fava was unfortunate enough to go off-side at a tackle when one of his men had nudged the ball ahead, Steyn kicked a penalty goal from two metres inside his own half.

He later tried a couple of drop goals without ever coming close, though his long range effort was enough to clinch his side the victory.