One of the great byproducts of the Hollywoodbets Sharks’ recent upswing in form is the probability that those of us who cover them for various platforms shouldn’t need to hear the same tired old lines coming out of press conferences.
“We are hurting but we are a proud team and will be looking to set things right”; “We have quality in this outfit and we will show that at the weekend. We need to show what we are about and repay the fans by bouncing back. We didn’t take our opportunities but we are not far away…”
Recognise some of those? They’re all variants of the same theme and for a long time, they amounted to so much hot air. The Sharks did have quality in their team, with several Springboks on their books, but if those players aren’t playing like Boks when they pull on the black jersey rather than the green and gold one, what is the point of having them?
FACTS BACK UP OPTIMISM OVER JP
Just like one swallow doesn’t make a summer, so two consecutive wins, even against a team in the DHL Stormers who topped the Vodacom URC log at the start of the sequence of coastal derbies, don’t make a successful rugby season. The Sharks have two tough away derbies to come on the Highveld against the Lions and Bulls, and a loss in either of those will leave them again struggling to stay in touch with the top eight and make them vulnerable again.
But there can be no denying that the Sharks, with the exception of the one blip in a home derby against the Lions in early January, have certainly made a good fist of JP Pietersen’s first period as Sharks interim coach.
There is talk in Durban that the bigwigs are already impressed enough to consider removing the word “interim” from Pietersen’s title, and the facts back up the optimism - seven starts, five wins and two defeats.
One of those defeats was when the Sharks went understrength to Sale Sharks in round three of the Investec Champions Cup, but even in that game, there were some positive signs shown by the fringe players as they embraced life under a new coach.
It probably helps that Pietersen knows them so well since being involved with them in two Carling Currie Cup seasons, but one of the immediate apparent differences in the Sharks under Pietersen and the Sharks under previous coach John Plumtree is the better flow and continuity between the Sharks team that plays when the Boks are available and the Sharks team on the days they aren’t.
Pietersen has been brave in his selections in the same manner that Dick Muir was when he first selected Pietersen into the Sharks team when he was still a teenager back in 2006, something that might be easier for him in that, unlike Plumtree, he is not fighting for his survival in his current role.
FACING A DIFFERENT PRESSURE TO THAT FACED BY PLUMTREE
For Plumtree, the Sword of Damocles was a constant presence - produce results or get on your bike and look for another job. Being an ‘interim’ coach may work for Pietersen, in the sense that, thanks in no small part to Plumtree’s confidence in him, which drove his decision to step aside early last December, he’s able to try things in the knowledge that if it doesn’t work out, he will still have the job he had before.
It’s not really about survival for Pietersen; the pressure on him is positive pressure, in the sense of “I’ve been given an opportunity and let’s see what I can do with that opportunity”. It’s working for him, and the Sharks’ tendency to talk the talk rather than walk the walk is fast becoming a thing of the past following two statement wins over the Stormers in successive weekends.
“When I took over, we weren’t in a great place. What I want to see is fight, not talking but doing, and making the badge proud. You could see that in the second half,” said Pietersen after his team’s 36-24 win.
And the evidence was hard to ignore. Previous Sharks teams may not have recovered from going 10 points behind the Stormers early in the second half. Remember, the Stormers have become a team known for a strong finish. But the Sharks, admittedly with the help of the rather dubious yellow card the referee Chris Allison showed to Ruben van Heerden, went on to score 22 unanswered points.
THEY HAVE BECOME CLINICAL
They scored five tries to two in the game, again the last one admittedly a gift from a bizarre brain fart from Stormers fullback Warrick Gelant, which followed on from four tries to two in their 30-19 win in Cape Town. That’s nine tries to four across 160 minutes, and two try-scoring bonus points to go with the win, against a team that was top of the URC defensive stats before the sequence of back-to-back coastal derbies.
One of the statements that has been removed from the Sharks’ press conference quote stream is the one about not taking chances. Over the two games, they showed a clinical side that has been lacking from the Sharks for a long time. While work still needs to be done on attacking shape, the Sharks’ ability to strike when they have 22 entries, something that was in direct contrast to the Stormers, was a reflection of good organisation within the team template.
“When we got into the 22 today, we were brutal,” he said at the post-match press conference. “It was the same in Cape Town. When we got into the 22, we were direct, aggressive and we came away with the points. That was pleasing.”
PLEASED WITH IMPROVEMENT IN DISCIPLINE
What was also pleasing was the improvement in discipline, although a better penalty count is what you’d expect when you are the team doing most of the pressurising, which was, for the most part, the case in this Kings Park game.
“We did not give away the penalties that gave the Stormers so many 22 entries in Cape Town,” said Pietersen. We managed that pressure better.”
Indeed, while the Stormers did kick four penalties in a game where their own approach was much more on the money given the conditions than was the case at the DHL Stadium the previous week, two of those were monstrous efforts from Sacha Feinberg-Mngomezulu - one from halfway, and the other from inside his own half.
When those two kicks were landed to give the Stormers the halftime lead it was easy to imagine the stars were conspiring against the Sharks, even though they were arguably quite lucky to have what looked like a perfectly good Stormers try to lock Adre Smith chalked off. But the days of lamenting luck appear to be behind the Sharks. They are now walking the walk.