Powell hails Sharks' positive result in Champions Cup

Sharks Director of Rugby Neil Powell hailed the improvement shown by the Sharks in their bonus-point win over Harlequins.

Just two weeks ago, the Sharks were humbled 35-0 by Cardiff in a rain-soaked affair in the United Ruby Championship. They turned it around against the Ospreys the following week and have now got their Heineken Champions Cup campaign off to a perfect start with a 39-31 bonus point win over Harlequins on Saturday.

"With only four pool games, it's important to get the positive result, especially in your home games," said Powell, as per rugby365.com.

"If you slip up here [at home] it will be tough to get into the knockout stages of the Heineken Cup.

"The positive result was really important and I think performance wise it was a massive step up from last weekend against the Ospreys. We believed that if the performance is good then the result will come.

"We controlled the game nicely in the first half. Unfortunately, the red and yellow cards in the second half put us under pressure. Even in the first half, we were not as disciplined as we would like to be.

"Hopefully, we can be more disciplined when we get into the next game against Bordeaux away."

The Sharks were in control in the second half, but let Harlequins back into the game after Bonngi Mbonambi was shown a yellow card and fellow Springbok Ox Nche got a red card for head-on-head contact.

When asked about Nche's tackle, Powell thought the red card was harsh.

"It's probably a yellow card, but again they [referees] need to make the decisions on the field," said Powell.

"We will obviously have a look at it and determine what we think the outcome should have been for that incident."