Coastal Sharks of South Africa made it seven wins in eight Super 14 outings when they beat Australia's Western Force 27-22 at Absa Stadium Friday.

But the Durban franchise lie only eighth on the table after completing their 13-fixture schedule having made a disastrous start to the southern hemisphere championship with five consecutive losses.

It was an even more disappointing season for Perth-based Force with some key players switching allegiance and they managed just four wins, although one was against seven-time champions Canterbury Crusaders of New Zealand.

Force captain and lock Nathan Sharpe was saddened by the outcome having vowed to bounce back after being well beaten by Central Cheetahs last weekend on the second leg of a South African tour that started with a victory.

"It was a tough match and I'm disappointed. The mindset of both teams was to attack and this contributed to the excitement, but we committed far too many mistakes," he conceded.

Force launched a 16-phase attack when Sharpe won possession at the kick-off only for Sharks to take the lead on eight minutes when wing Lwazi Mvovo dived over in the corner and fly-half Ruan Pienaar converted.

Scrum-half Brett Sheehan and teenage full-back James O'Connor kicked two penalties each for the visitors before South African number eight Ryan Kankowski barged across the line and Pienaar converted again.

Pienaar and O'Connor maintained 100 percent goal-kicking records in the opening half with a penalty each to leave Sharks 17-15 in front when the half-time whistle sounded.

Opportunist Sharks snatched a third try eight minutes into the second half as flanker Jacques Botes finished off a driving maul by dotting down and Pienaar once more struck a conversion between the posts.

Replacement Force prop Matt Dunning wasted a good try-scoring chance by knocking on before a superb O'Connor-initiated handling move ended with wing Nick Cummins going over and the fullback added the conversion.

With a quarter of the match to play and the Sharks clinging to a 24-22 advantage the outcome hung in the balance, but another Pienaar penalty was the only further score in a tense, sometimes scrappy climax.

"Losing the first five matches was certainly not part of our plan, but we rebounded superbly with the only loss in eight matches coming at the Bulls," said Sharks and Springboks skipper and hooker John Smit.

Sharks tighthead prop and man of the match Jannie du Plessis added: "Having let ourselves down early in the season we had two choices - become worse or fight back and the results speak volumes for the spirit in the team."

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