Beast: Sharks were 'embarrassing'
The Hurricanes crushed the Sharks with a record-setting victory to cruise into the Super Rugby semifinals on a stormy night in Wellington on Saturday.
For the first time in the history of the Southern Hemisphere championship a side has been kept scoreless in a play-off match.
It is a record Sharks captain Tendai Mtawarira did not want to be part of, describing the South Africans performance as an "embarrassing effort" against the top-ranked New Zealanders.
Coach Gary Gold was also very critical of his team's effort – slamming the "poor execution" and "naive" tactics.
In the foul weather, the Hurricanes cashed in on a turnover ball in the first half before TJ Perenara and Beauden Barrett defied the wind and rain in the second spell to orchestrate an attacking game.
"We changed a few things with the weather, we knew we couldn't be too expansive but we put them in the right areas of the field and our forwards being physical enough to dominate a few collisions helped us," Perenara said.
While the Hurricanes move on to the semis, the tournament ended for the Sharks with Mtawarira saying things did not go according to plan.
"We wanted to play a territory game but the Hurricanes outclassed us," he said.
"We made a lot of costly errors, a lot of defensive errors and in the end it was an embarrassing effort."
