DHL Western Province went down 23-25 to the Sharks in a hard-fought Absa Currie Cup encounter at DHL Newlands on Saturday evening.
DHL WP led 13-3 at halftime but the Sharks fought back strongly in the second half.
A late try by captain Deon Fourie put DHL WP up 23-22 with time running out (just seven minutes left on the clock), but the winning points came via a Riaan Viljoen drop-goal five minutes before fulltime.
DHL Western Province kept fighting until the final whistle and were unlucky losers in the end by just two points in front of a crowd of 6 279 at a cold DHL Newlands.
The scorers:
For DHL Western Province:
Tries: Tiaan Liebenberg, Deon Fourie
Cons: Joe Pietersen 2
Pens: Pietersen 3
For the Sharks:
Tries: Paul Jordaan, Craig Burden 2
Cons: Meyer Bosman 2
Pen: Bosman
DG: Viljoen
The DHL WP team: 15 Joe Pietersen, 14 Gerhard van den Heever, 13 JP du Plessis, 12 Marcel Brache, 11 Gio Aplon, 10 Burton Francis, 9 Dewaldt Duvenage, 8 Jebb Sinclair, 7 Tyrone Holmes, 6 Deon Fourie (captain), 5 De Kock Steenkamp, 4 Don Armand, 3 Frans Malherbe, 2 Tiaan Liebenberg, 1 Deon Carstens.
Reserves: 16 Siyabonga Ntubeni, 17 Brok Harris, 18 Wilhelm van der Sluys, 19 Yaya Hartzenberg, 20 Louis Schreuder, 21 Gary van Aswegen, 22 Damian de Allende.
Referee: Lourens van der Merwe