The Cell C Sharks are in the frame for the Vodacom United Rugby Championship play-offs and have an excellent chance of making the quarterfinals of the Heineken Champions Cup yet it has been an underwhelming season.
There is a lot of expectation on the Sharks and the short answer to why that is the case is money. The DHL Stormers may soon have an equity partner, and the Vodacom Bulls have plenty of financial muscle due to their partnership with the Rupert/Motsepe consortium, but it is the Sharks who are the most wealthy currently due to their American owners.
But while the Sharks are envied for their financial strength, they are not envied for what they are doing with their money and there have long been questions over the team culture and, in particular, their recruitment strategy.
People working at the Sharks might point to the absence of their phalanx of marquee Springboks in explaining their current seventh position on the log with three rounds to play, which puts them in danger of missing out on Champions Cup qualification for next season. But the fact that much of the URC is played under-strength is not something that suddenly happened, it was known before the season started. So where was the succession planning?
RECRUITING IN WRONG AREAS
The Sharks have done some good recruiting when it comes to backline talent (outside of flyhalf where their recruitment continues to be inept) but have built nothing when it comes to depth at forward. In both games against the Stormers, who were also without key Springboks, the Sharks pack was overwhelmed, and Curwin Bosch gets exposed when he isn’t behind a pack that is providing go-forward ball.
Indeed, the Stormers are a good example of what needs to be done in order to be successful in the URC. The pack that dominated the Sharks both in Durban in February and Cape Town in the first week of March had just one survivor, Deon Fourie, from the pack that played last year’s URC final against the Bulls. Stormers coach John Dobson has recruited wisely and he’s built depth.
The Sharks’ depth is in the wrong areas, although the arrival of Rohan Janse van Rensburg has been a massive positive - at least when the Sharks team does what is needed to make him a factor. Like in the second half of the recent game against the Stormers. The inside centre though is the only player in the team that has played the last few weeks that manages to take the ball over the gainline, which would normally be the role of some of the key forwards, and that is problematic.
PROBLEMS PREDATED POWELL
To be fair, some of the current Sharks problems, like the questions about recruitment and team culture, long predated the arrival of former Blitzbok coach Neil Powell as the director of rugby. In the Robert du Preez era there was a perception that the Sharks were often way too passive at the start of games, and that has persisted.
Indeed, and this is ironic as it looks like he is set to return, but for the one year when Jake White coached them, the Sharks have arguably struggled ever since John Plumtree was axed as coach in 2013. The last global Super Rugby season before Covid arrived saw the Sharks looking motivated and sharp under the coaching of Sean Everitt. Then Covid arrived, as did a new dynamic in the Sharks management structures, and with it came the return of the inconsistency that has blighted the Sharks for a decade.
Make no mistake, the Sharks might still make something of this season. They were tactically poor when they lost to Harlequins away, but generally their form in the Champions Cup has been good. Their away win over the Bordeaux Begles rivalled their big home win over the Vodacom Bulls on New Year’s Eve as the performance of the season.
WHEN ETZEBETH IS PRESENT THE TEAM FOLLOWS
When Bok behemoth Eben Etzebeth is present, the rest of the Sharks team follows him. The former Stormers player does make all the difference to the Sharks team when he plays. And when he plays, they will have a chance of beating any team in a one-off playoff fixture.
However, there are way too many blowouts for a team with so much financial armoury, and the disastrous performance against Cardiff that cost Everitt his job was by no means a stand alone. Just from the top of the head, the big home loss to the Stormers was as bad. That, like many other days, was one where the Sharks were made to look like they have a coaching problem as much as a recruitment one.
They were passive and disorganised in the first half of the most recent Stormers match too and were decidedly fortunate that it coincided with an off day in the host team’s finishing. Powell’s contention afterwards that his team deserved to win was clutching at straws. Yes, the Stormers gifted them a position where they were in with a chance of winning it in the last eight minutes, but it was a bit damning that the Stormers with 13 men were then able to just shift a gear, tighten their game up and shut down a team that had all 15 on the field. The Stormers were helped too by some pretty naive rugby from the Sharks.
PLUMTREE IS A GOOD SOLUTION
If Plumtree arrives, and that isn’t a fait accompli as he will need certain guarantees before he signs, we are unlikely to see too many repeats of the Sharks tendency to blow out. The Sharks weren’t playing great rugby when Plumtree departed in 2013, and were going through a bit of a blip, but he’s been an assistant coach at Ireland and the All Blacks since then, and a head coach to a successful Hurricanes team in Super Rugby. That experience will make him a better coach than he was when he last called Durban home.
To be fair to the Sharks management, it probably was always going to get to this. Everitt may have felt at the start of this season that his days were numbered, for it was no secret that the Sharks’ owners wanted him out after the quarterfinal defeat in last year’s URC. It was just the argument put forward by some experienced Sharks administrators who have been around the block a few times that forced a stay of execution.
Neither would Powell, who was initially recruited to be the defence coach and then summarily promoted during the 2021/2022 team when it appeared something needed to be seen to be done, have been happy to have Everitt depart the scene in the manner he did in October. After years away from the 15-man game, and having never coached it at a high level, the last thing the former scrum-half needed was to be having to carry the burden of being head coach.
As it stands though, the platforms that Powell claimed to have been put in place when he spoke at the post-match press conference to the Cape Town game are not evident. Every time it looks as though the Sharks have turned a corner, there’s another wakeup call. And from what we hear from those around the Sharks camp, if Plumtree does arrive he will have much work to do before the team culture can claim to be right. And it will take time.
In the long run, with Plumtree at the helm, and provided he has the overriding say in selection, strategy and a bigger hand in recruitment than some of his more immediate predecessors, the Sharks should be alright and should become a successful franchise. It’s just taking a bit longer than may have been expected.