Poor tour for Sharks but there is context

Winning just one of three games on tour, and that win was a lucky one too, probably fell short of coach John Plumtree’s goal for the opening salvo of the Hollywoodbets Sharks’ 2024-25 Vodacom United Rugby Championship campaign but it wasn’t really that surprising.

While Plumtree was honest at the post-match press conference following the 38-10 defeat to Benetton in Treviso, and admitted his team just wasn’t good enough, his earlier mention of fatigue being a possible factor in his television interview was probably pretty close to the mark. While the Sharks were poor, the performance does need to be seen in the context of what can really be described as a bizarre buildup to the new season.

Plumtree has always been quite openly critical of the scheduling that saw his team committed to Currie Cup playoffs in the weeks that should have been the final build-up period to the URC kick-off. He was one of the coaches who would have been happy to stick to the initial plan of the URC kicking off with a round of local derbies on the same day as the Carling Currie Cup final.

AGAINST BETTER JUDGEMENT

In saying that, he was acknowledging which was the more important competition, and had the Sharks first team been playing in the scheduled URC game against the Emirates Lions, a second-string team would have gone to the domestic final (and probably played the semifinal too). But once his team made the final with an epic win over 100 minutes against the Vodacom Bulls, Plumtree and his team were duty-bound to go all out in the domestic decider - against his better judgement, for it is the URC now that determines success and failure, and not the Currie Cup.

It was probably the tough six-week phase of games, starting with the final Currie Cup league game against the Bulls in Durban, that was responsible for any loud flapping heard above Treviso on Saturday evening. That would have been the chickens coming home to roost for a team that has effectively been on the road for the last five weeks.

Playing the tough games they have, with the emotional energy that was expended, was always going to have payback for the Sharks, and don’t bet too much on it not happening to the Lions later on in their current tour too. It certainly looked in the second half of their opening URC tour game against Connacht that the travel and workload had caused dead legs, and in the most recent game in Treviso, they were definitely well short of a gallop.

If at the end of the season, the Sharks are just short of hitting the target, be that a place in the top two, top four or top eight, it will be reasonable to look back at that as being a possible sacrifice for winning the Currie Cup and a consequence of a scheduling issue that for the good of South African rugby should never be allowed to be repeated.

SA TEAMS DISADVANTAGED

There’s a lot to be positive about when it comes to Springbok rugby at the moment but the next level down is going to suffer if the current 12-month season is persisted with. It just isn’t sustainable, and the Sharks’ defeat might have been a micro indication of what could become a macro problem going forward.

The South African participation in a southern hemisphere international competition, the Castle Lager Rugby Championship, might also need to be looked at going forward. The South African teams competing in the URC are severely disadvantaged by having to start the competition without their Boks while the overseas teams can field full complements.

The number of games played under-strength is one of the few areas where the URC is inferior to the old Super Rugby, which was never played under-strength and was played in a window where there was no international rugby.

The Sharks will be welcoming back their Boks for what should be seen as the start of a crucial fortnight when they host the competition champions, the Glasgow Warriors, at Hollywoodbets Kings Park on Saturday. But it would be understandable if the American owners of the Sharks, who plough a lot of money into the franchise, question whether it is right that they don’t see their top players until the fourth game of the campaign.

NOT RUTHLESS ENOUGH

Regardless of who plays on Saturday and who doesn’t, the Sharks are now under pressure for a big response after the wake-up call provided by Benetton, and Plumtree knows the key areas that need working on.

“We just weren’t good enough. We had too many unforced errors at crucial times, particularly in their 22-metre area when we had opportunities to build pressure,” said Plumtree after the game.

“Particularly in the second half, we had territory and possession and we just weren’t clinical enough. It’s something we are going to have to look at. We weren’t nearly ruthless enough.”

Benetton also gave the Sharks an object lesson of the value of having a good defensive system, which was an area where the Sharks fell well short on the day, with way too many flaws being exposed in the wide channels by the Benetton attacking game.

“I thought Benetton’s defence was outstanding, we didn’t handle that well,” said Plumtree of what was a fired-up Benetton effort driven by the desperation of having lost three games on the trot to start the season.

The Glasgow game on Saturday is followed by the visit of Munster a week later. Those two games will tell us whether the Sharks are the contenders for URC honours that we thought they were when their improvements (driven by culture correction) started to appear during last year’s EPCR Challenge Cup playoff phase and in the Currie Cup knockouts.