Sharks coach Jake White lost to his former ACT Brumbies team in Canberra on Saturday.
A fast-flagging Otago Highlanders have escaped with the narrowest of victories to get back on track with a 23-22 victory over the Golden Lions.
Lwazi Mvovo scored a superb chip-and-chase try for the Sharks 13 minutes from time at Ellis Park.
Winger Robbie Coleman scored a try double as the ACT Brumbies downed the Western Stormers 25-15 to go back to the top of the Super 15 conference.
The Auckland Blues held off a late-charging Central Cheetahs to sneak into the top six of the Super 15 competition with a 40-30 bonus-point victory.
The Lions clawed their way back into Super Rugby despite going down 23-18 to the Southern Kings in their second leg promotion-relegation match.
Cheetahs flyhalf Riaan Smit hit the upright with a last minute conversion attempt to hand ACT Brumbies a 15-13 victory on Sunday.
The Stormers denied the Bulls top spot in the Super Rugby table with a 30-13 win at Newlands on Saturday, the last match of the regular season.
The Cheetahs’ hopes of reaching the Super Rugby play-offs for the first time suffered a blow when they were defeated 28-3 by the Stormers on Saturday.
The Bulls cemented their local dominance in Super Rugby when they beat their closest rivals the Cheetahs 30-23 during the weekend’s 16th round.
Morne Steyn booted South African conference leaders the Bulls to a narrow 18-16 win over the Sharks in an attritional game in Durban on Saturday.
All Black centre Conrad Smith was knocked out and taken to hospital as the Bulls blew past New Zealand’s Hurricanes 48-14 at Loftus on Saturday.
Burton Francis’s penalty after the hooter helped the Cheetahs to their fifth consecutive win, overcoming the Stormers 26-24 in their Super 15 match.
The Melbourne Rebels produced a stunning form reversal to beat the Western Force 30-23 in their Super 15 rugby clash in Perth.
A second-half burst gave the Wellington Hurricanes maximum points over the New South Wales Waratahs with a 41-29 victory in their Super 15 clash.
The Cheetahs won their fourth successive Super Rugby match with a 34-16 victory over the Melbourne Rebels at the Free State Stadium on Saturday.
The ACT Brumbies stretched their unbeaten start to Super Rugby to three matches with a 35-6 win over the New South Wales Waratahs.
Lions captain Joshua Strauss said their dip in the second half had been a problem the whole season, and that players often lost concentration.
Saru and its Super 15 teams have agreed on "a number of options" to solve the dilemma of six sides fighting for five places in the 2013 competition.
SA teams occupy three of the top six places in the Super 15 after the 12th round as the campaigns of New Zealand and Australian teams began to falter.
