Chiefs' blunders give Sharks game on a plate

Byron Kelleher jumps to claim a high ball against the sharks in Durban. Touchline / Getty Images

Sharks 30 Chiefs 21

Too many self-inflicted wounds cost the Chiefs any chance of an opening-round win against a determined if limited Sharks in Durban yesterday.

The hosts, who finished last in the final edition of the Super 12 last year, were 14 points ahead by halftime and no doubt could hardly believe their good fortune.

Then in the final quarter, having withstood a Chiefs resurgence, they hung on and denied the visitors even the consolation of a bonus point courtesy of Percy Montgomery's accurate goalkicking.

He scored 25 of the Sharks' points, kicking six of eight attempts.

By contrast, Stephen Donald missed a vital penalty shot from handy range eight minutes from the end which would have put the Chiefs within six points; then his replacement Loki Crichton hooked a harder chance wide.

But it was the first half which undid the Chiefs, and that after a strong opening quarter in which they had taken the lead and appeared to have set a decent foundation.

Sione Lauaki's try in the eighth minute, surging through four tacklers from 10m out, would not have been scored by many other players.

But then the blunders began.

Indecision, dropped passes, failure to retain possession all played their part as the Sharks simply waited for the chances to be presented.

"The first-half execution was pretty poor and we gifted the Sharks turnover points," Chiefs coach Ian Foster said after the match.

The Sharks' opening try, however, was sheer class.

Young halfback Ruan Pienaar took a pass from the back of a scrum 60m out, sliced between Steven Bates and Donald, swerved inside Mils Muliaina and wrong-footed covering defender Sosene Anesi. There won't be many better tries in the coming months.

Then the silly stuff started.

Donald and Muliaina fluffed about with what should have been a bog-standard clearance in their right corner. From the subsequent scrum, Pienaar and Gcobani Bobo did the setting up and Montgomery dived over the ruck to score by the posts.

As the errors mounted, the Sharks visibly gained heart. Montgomery kicked a penalty after Byron Kelleher, who did not have one of his better days, was caught making a head high tackle - that having stemmed from Muliaina inexplicably losing the ball in a one-on-one tackle moments earlier.

Donald had a clearing kick charged down by the tireless A. J. Venter; Muliaina and Mark Ranby - on early for the luckless Niva Ta'auso, who injured his ankle - collided in midair trying to grab the rebound and Montgomery picked up the loose ball to score.

The errors weren't all defensive. Donald, having done the hard part by shooting through a gap, ignored the flying Sitiveni Sivivatu on his left shoulder by turning the wrong way.

Anesi got the second Chiefs try after good work by Ranby and Muliaina inside him.

Thereafter it was a penalty shootout. The Chiefs fired too many blanks but Montgomery was armed with the real stuff and took advantage of a string of thoughtless errors.

It wasn't all bad for the Chiefs. The lineouts were won comfortably, Bernie Upton and Sean Hohneck being dominant, and their scrum was generally stable.

There were plenty of moments of real class in the backline work, and to be fair it was more a need for fine tuning than heading back to the classroom.

But the Chiefs know they need points in their three-game road trip, and this was a bad miss.

Last year, they had a shocker against the Reds early on and it bit them at the business end of the competition.

They'll be hoping February 12 in Durban does not come back to haunt them in a couple of months' time.