The Cell C Sharks’ travails in the Vodacom United Rugby Championship will be put on hold this weekend when Siya Kolisi’s men switch their attention to their important round of 16 Heineken Champions Cup clash with Munster at HollywoodBets Kings Park.
The Sharks have never made any secret of how much stock they place on the elite European competition and generally their performances in the Champions Cup, with the exception of the one away defeat to Harlequins in London, have been superior to their efforts in the URC, where they are currently eighth and in danger of not making the playoffs.
However, the Sharks continue to disappoint a support base that should expect a lot more of the richest local team in the respective international competitions, and director of rugby Neil Powell was honest in his post-match reflections following his team’s 32-20 defeat to Scarlets in Llanelli. He summed up what most of us saw - a Sharks performance that was too error-ridden and individualistic.
“Obviously it was a disappointing performance from us and the result was disappointing as well,” said Powell, who has doubled as the Sharks head coach since Sean Everitt’s departure at the end of October.
“Again it was a game where we let ourselves down because of our ill discipline. There were too many penalties that put us under pressure.”
Powell was right about his team’s discipline, in the sense that it was the six penalties kicked by Scarlets flyhalf Sam Costelow that was the ultimate difference between the teams. However, what he did not mention was that the Sharks had a stream of penalties awarded to them at some stages of the game - indeed, it was hard to believe that Scarlets got through the game without someone being carded - and were not able to make anything of it.
And that is as much the Sharks’ problem as their indiscipline - their lack of attacking structure as well as the unforced errors that Powell agrees remains a blight.
GIVING AWAY SCRAPS
“There were too many unforced errors. We knew coming into this game that Scarlets feed off opportunities and scraps. Unfortunately we gave them those scraps they need to play off and they scored two tries off our mistakes,” he said.
“All round we were not good enough and not clinical enough in this game. We have only ourselves to blame for that. We produced a very individualistic performance. I feel like the guys really tried hard but as a team we didn’t play as a team that was together. We will have to come together over the next four days and ensure we bring a team performance against Munster and not an individual performance.”
The good news for the Sharks is that their opponents weren’t good at the weekend either, with Munster being outplayed at 38-26 at home by Glasgow Warriors. With the Stormers facing a potentially tough opponent in Harlequins and the Bulls going to Toulouse, the Sharks do have arguably the best chance of all the South African teams of advancing to the quarterfinals.
However, the Sharks will have to hope that their returning Springboks, all of whom were quiet in the game in Wales, will have shaken off some of the rust that might have cost their team at Parc Y Scarlets. It was certainly not the first time in the Sharks’ history that they lost a game unexpectedly when their Boks returned to action.
John Plumtree, who is understood to be the Sharks’ coach in waiting, will recall it happening to him twice in Currie Cup knock-out games - in the 2009 semifinal against the Cheetahs in Durban and again in the final against the Lions a fortnight after his Boks had been knocked out of the 2011 Rugby World Cup in New Zealand.
The one game that the Boks have played back, and the team has played together, should count for something as they head into the first of two games they will play against Munster over the next few weeks - the two teams are due to meet again in the URC in mid-April.