Sharks coach Dick Muir refused to blame a missed conversion for his side’s 20-19 defeat by the Bulls in the Super 14 final in Durban on Saturday.
Wing Frans Steyn, who had celebrated his 20th birthday during the week, missed the conversion to Albert ven den Bergh’s try that would have given the Sharks an unassailable eight-point lead with only 80 seconds remaining.
”When we beat the Crusaders, [scrumhalf] Ruan Pienaar grabbed the ball and kicked over a vital kick and this time Frans marched up and grabbed the ball — but it wasn’t down to the kick,” said Muir. ”We made too many mistakes.”
Bulls wing Bryan Habana snatched victory with a brilliant solo try after the siren sounded, allowing Derick Hougaard to kick the match-winning conversion from in front of the posts.
”We needed our game breakers to come through and luckily Bryan did,” said Bulls captain Victor Matfield.
Habana said: ”The Sharks were expecting me to score in the corner not under the poles. Five or six of them over-rushed the ball and it just opened up on the inside for me.”
Bulls coach Heyneke Meyer said he never gave up hope.
”I have said before that this team is like charcoal and the pressure they are under just turns them into diamonds,” he said.
”I said after they scored the [van den Bergh] try that we could still do it even though there were only seconds left. I am the proudest coach in the world and the luckiest because each of these guys enriches my life.”
Muir added: ”You’ve heard of guys dropping the ball, but not the trophy. I felt we’d done enough to win the game. We’d done so well up until we missed the conversion and there were only a couple of seconds left.
”It has been an unbelievable season with a great bunch of guys and we have come a long way, but this finish just throws everything out of kilter.
”I felt we deserved the win and we deserved the trophy. We did all the playing but we just didn’t win the game. We’ve won games in this way before and now we’ve lost one.” — Reuters