Super Rugby: Sharks beat Reds to stay unbeaten
Super Rugby leaders Sharks maintained their perfect start to the season with a 35-20 win over the Reds in Durban.
Last Updated: 15/03/14 6:12pm
Replacement prop Dale Chadwick's late try finally finished off the Reds after second-half scores from Mike Harris and Will Genia pulled the Queenslanders back into the contest.
Willem Alberts scored the only try of the first half as Jake White's side took a 25-6 half-time lead.
Quade Cooper kicked over all the Reds' first-half points inside the opening 15 minutes, with Frans Steyn and Pat Lambie responding for the hosts to make it 6-6.
They forged ahead on the back of two Lambie's penalties before Alberts crashed over on 27 minutes.
SP Marais' clever cross-field kick into the Reds 22 found Sibusiso Sithole and with the away defence back-tracking Alberts rumbled over to finish the move.
Lambie and Steyn added further conversions, the latter typically from long-range again, to make it 25-6 at half-time.
The Reds were far better after half-time and served notice they could yet end the Sharks three-game winning run to the season.
Feeble tackling
Mike Harris ran through some feeble tackling to score under the posts on 54 minutes and while Lambie landed a penalty shortly after Genia found a gap to run over.
The Australia scrum-half saw the opportunity to burst through a gap on the 22 and allow Cooper the simplest of conversions to make it 28-18 heading into the final quarter.
The Reds' comeback stalled on the sin-binning of Beau Robinson on 68 minutes, for pulling down lock Tera Mtembu down in a lineout.
The Sharks were denied a try to seal the match by the television match official, but it mattered not when Chadwick went over for his first Super Rugby try.
