Sharks ready for Jaguares onslaught

Sharks loose-forward Tyler Paul expects a tough examination from a Jaguares team fresh from another win at Loftus Versfeld.

While the Sharks outmuscled the Reds in Brisbane‚ the Jaguares again stormed the Pretoria fort.

In 2019, they needed a late match-turning intervention from Domingo Miotti to snatch a win. Twelve months on they dominated the game from start to finish while leaving the hosts with more questions than answers.

They also embarrassed the Sharks at home in 2019, but that was Robert du Preez’s unmotivated bunch.

Sean Everitt’s group is full of life. While they have yet to shrug off the effects of their trans-Indian Ocean flight‚ they have three wins from four matches to show for their efforts.

Paul‚ who sat out the Reds game‚ understood how difficult the Jaguares fixture will be.

“It’s going to be tough with the travel back from Australia.

“Resting a few of the players has really helped. They’ll probably look to us to bring the energy at training this week.

“Hopefully, it will pay off‚” said Paul. “They’ve been very good in the past year, and it’s going to be a massive forward battle. That’s what we’re expecting.

“Like we did last week‚ we’ve got to step up and take them on.”

While it’s too early to say which team is the best in the SA conference‚ the Sharks and the Jaguares have shown enough to worry other teams about their play-off ambitions.

Paul though is not looking that far ahead. In 2019, the Sharks made the quarterfinals‚ but they were terrible at home.

“It’s a little bit early to say but we’ll take it one game at a time. We can’t get too ahead of ourselves. We need to focus on the job at the weekend. We’ll see further down the line‚” Paul said.