Du Plessis heaps praise on Herbst

Sharks anchor Jannie Du Plessis could not fault his fellow prop Wiehahn Herbst after his huge effort against the Chiefs in Hamilton on Saturday.

The Sharks tighthead prop mentioned the difficulty of shifting to the other side of the scrum and commended the young Shark for his successful transition to loosehead.

"I don’t know if people realise how well Wiehahn Herbst played at loosehead, it’s not easy to go and play on the other side of the scrum, but he’s very strong and shorter than others he plays against, but I don’t think people know how well he is playing.

"He deserves credit and like the whole pack, was brilliant; everyone scrummed, everyone pulled their weight," Du Plessis mentioned.

It was also a great performance by a number of the other forwards and Du Plessis is aware of this and credited the players for their massive effort.

Derick Minnie managed to get over the try-line twice on his Sharks debut and, in his first run-on start, Lubabalo Mtembu was also huge.

"What a debut [Derick Minnie]! Not only him, Tera [Mtembu] too in his first start and what a start.

"I thought the loosies were brilliant and Anton Bresler is playing brilliant rugby and Pieter-Steph du Toit did what he has been doing all year," the Springbok veteran added.

One could argue that the damage was done when the Chiefs went into a 24-0 lead within the first 35 minutes of the game but, Du Plessis is aware of the lesson that this taught the Sharks.

"Unfortunately we didn’t play well enough to win and that’s the biggest lesson we should learn: to make sure we play accurately enough that we use the opportunities we have to win the game," he said.

With all this said, the Sharks were not able to win in Hamilton but coming back like that, as well as coming off two consecutive losses and an adruous week of travelling means that the Sharks can feel slightly upbeat for their trip down south to Dunedin.