Sharks to ditch Jekyll and Hyde mentality
Robert du Preez's side are coming off a well-deserved and crucial 33-25 win over the Jaguares in Buenos Aires after producing a shockingly poor performance a week earlier in a 9-all draw with the Melbourne Rebels in Durban.
The Sharks have hit some highs and lows this season with their performances on the field and a little consistency would be the target in the next few weeks ahead of the June international break
"Momentum is everything," said Sharks centre Jeremy Ward.
"We had a quote this week which says, 'good teams maintain momentum, but great teams increase momentum' and that is what we are looking to do this week – to carry on pushing forward and really step up and start playing better rugby, especially at home.
"We are looking to give the fans a good performance this weekend."
Ward said the trip to Argentina last week helped them iron out some of their deficiencies that have plagued them in recent weeks.
"It was certainly a mental challenge for all of us coming off the result we had against the Rebels.
"We let ourselves down and a lot of people that support us down, so we knew we had to shift mentally and we certainly did not have it easy by going over to Argentina.
"We knew that we all had to buy into what we wanted to do…It took a mental shift from everybody to be fully committed to the cause and just trust our systems and trust our game plans," said the 21-year-old.
Ward added: "We had a solid review after the game [against the Rebels]. The coaches put a lot of time effort to find out what went wrong and we had to shift our game accordingly to play the Jaguares in Argentina. I think we played a bit more direct and it certainly helped us in the long run."
Having faced the four other Australian sides already this season, Ward knows what to expect from the Force this weekend.
"All Aussie teams are trying to play the same style and same type of play. We are expecting a tough encounter, especially as they will look to feed off our errors.
"They have some very dangerous players so it's about us pitching up on the day and meeting our standards, not lowering them," Ward added.
@rugby365com
