Coach Sean Everitt has come out in defence of under-fire Sharks flyhalf Curwin Bosch who has retained the No 10 jersey for the clash with Dragons on Friday. DYLAN JACK reports.

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Bosch came under heavy criticism for his performance in the Sharks’ home loss to Scottish side Edinburgh in the Vodacom United Rugby Championship.

Playing in wet and rainy conditions at Kings Park, Bosch missed a penalty from just about in front of the poles and also sent two touch kicks wayward.

Everitt has been consistent in his backing of Bosch since the 24-year-old returned from injury and replaced Boeta Chamberlain in the starting lineup.

The Sharks head coach once again defended Bosch when asked about keeping him in the lineup for Friday’s match against Welsh side Dragons and was eager to put the facts straight about the flyhalf’s performance.

“There is a lot of talk about Curwin at this stage. What we need to do is be factual with regard to that,” Everitt said.

“His kicking has been really good for us up until last week. Against Zebre, he kicked six out of six. He also controlled the game really well and attacked much better than he has in the past, so he has shown some improvement there.

“We all know that he missed the two touch kicks [against Edinburgh] and he missed a kick in front of the poles. But, if you look at his kicking stats, they are the best that we have.

“As far as his game management is concerned, he showed class in that area last week. He managed the game really well in tough conditions. So much so that we were able to win 65% territory.

“The leadership that he brings in the week, I don’t think anybody sees that either. He is performing well at training and we feel that he is the right guy to get us through on Friday night.”

Everitt said after looking back on the loss to Edinburgh, he felt the Sharks conceded soft tries which in turn put extra pressure on their attack, but added his team would be much better in taking their opportunities against the Dragons.

“If you look at last week’s game, everybody looks at the opportunities that we created on attack and obviously us not finishing those,” Everitt said. “But you also have to look at the points that we conceded. If you are going to concede three tries that we could have handled normally, it is always going to be difficult because that means we have to score four tries. In those conditions to score four tries, you have to do something special.

“That was a massive issue last week. So we have been working on taking our opportunities. We have concentrated on small detail where we felt we fell short. I know we will be better on Friday night.”

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