Kings Park game was where Sharks let themselves down

South Africans tend to react emotionally when their teams lose so the pressure was squarely on Cell C Sharks coach Sean Everitt after his team’s loss to the DHL Stormers in Cape Town at the weekend, but perhaps a more sober analysis is needed and more recognition of what beat them.

Of course, there will always be questions about a team’s game-plan when they lose, and the Sharks did lose the DHL Stadium game more comprehensively than the 10-point difference on the scoreboard might suggest. But any argument that assumes the point that the Sharks somehow conspired against themselves and that it was a game they should have expected to win is inaccurate.

Where they did conspire against themselves and did fail to win a game they should have won, was the week before that. No question about it. The Sharks shot themselves in both feet at Hollywoodbets Kings Park in the first of the two coastal derbies played on consecutive Saturdays. Their discipline and their place-kicking let themselves down and it meant they got two points from a game where for most of the way they were dominant enough to get five.

That was a home game for them so you would expect it to be thus. They started well, the Stormers were the visiting team. It should have been game over when they were 19-3 up after 50 minutes.

CAPE TOWN A COMPLETELY DIFFERENT SCENARIO

This past weekend though was a completely different scenario and if there were Sharks fans who expected their team to do in Cape Town, at an away venue, what they did for an hour on their home field they live in Cloud Cuckooland. Or maybe they haven’t paid enough attention to how much the Stormers have improved in the last year.

Just in case people haven’t noticed, here is an interesting fact: Since the Sharks beat Western Province in the 2020 Currie Cup semifinal in what was supposed to be the final game WP ever played at Newlands, it has been the Stormers that have got the better of the coastal derbies.

We have to disregard the Sharks’ win in last week’s midweek Currie Cup game because that was between second string teams, so the only game the Sharks have won since last January against their coastal rivals was that freakish Rainbow Cup game last April where the Stormers incurred two red cards and yet would still have won had Ruhan Nel dotted down when he was over the line off the final move of the match.

Since then, the Stormers won the return Rainbow Cup game at Kings Park last May, a game that ended a long sequence of Sharks wins at their fortress, and they won both 2021 Currie Cup games before leaving Durban last week with a draw. The point being made isn’t that the Cape team dominates their rivals, for the reality is that most of the games have been really close, but that the Stormers are not easy pickings.

And they are particularly not easy pickings on their home field when they have some semblance of a crowd back. And, and this is the most important point, when they play as well as they did this past Saturday.

SHARKS JUST WEREN’T ALLOWED TO PLAY

The Sharks did make mistakes, but there was one really good reason why the Sharks didn’t look like the team that had the most Springboks and marquee players: They just weren’t allowed to. Perhaps you need to be at a match and see the full field to properly get what is meant when it is said one defensive system dominates.

It was something that sprung to mind when the Boks easily dominated Argentina when they were understrength in the first of the two Rugby Championship test matches played in Gqeberha last August. In that game it was clear from the vantage point of the Nelson Mandela Stadium press box that the Pumas had no price.

It was a similar story at the DHL Stadium this past Saturday. It was clear from an early stage that the Stormers’ excellent, rapidly advancing defensive system was suffocating the Sharks. The Stormers have the best defensive stats among the South African teams in the URC, in the sense they have conceded the least points, and there is a reason for that.

They did the same thing to the Bulls for the entire first half at Loftus two weeks ago, with a yellow card playing a big role in allowing the hosts back into that game, where there was also the altitude factor to contend with, in the middle stages before the Stormers regrouped and came back to breach the Loftus fortress.

STORMERS DOING WHAT SHARKS DID TWO YEARS AGO

Ironically, there is also an element to the Stormers game that is reminiscent of what the Sharks were working towards and doing successfully in Everitt’s first foray as head coach in an international competition. That was when the team exceeded all expectations in what turned out to be the Covid truncated last ever global Super Rugby season in 2020.

It will be recalled that James Venter, acquired during that off-season from the Emirates Lions, was a revelation and an important player for the Sharks as a genuine specialist ball scavenging openside flank. When he wasn’t there, Dylan Richardson did the job.

After the 2020 Currie Cup final, Everitt told supersport.com that he was a big believer in the specialist mould of openside flank and would never play without one. He is now, which begs a question around how much of a role he plays in the recruiting.

“Your playing style is dictated by the make-up of your team,” said Everitt on Saturday night.

That was after the point was made in a question that the Stormers, with the dynamic opensider Deon Fourie winning the man of the match award and replacement Nama Xaba also a genuine opensider, are now shifting to what the Sharks did two years ago.

PRAISE FOR STORMERS

Everitt was full of praise for the Stormers and in particular for what their coach John Dobson has managed to do in transitioning his team towards a new playing style.

“The Stormers don’t have the same forward strength they had before so they have found different ways to play and they have done very well with that,” he said.

To be fair, it is unlikely the Stormers performance would have surprised Everitt. If you engage him, or for that matter the Sharks’ chief executive Eduard Coetzee, in conversation, they have massive respect for what Dobson is doing. The Stormers don’t have the marquee players and Boks they used to have, but they have recruited wisely and they have recruited for the game they want to play.

The Stormers may not win any silverware now, but provided they get an equity partner and can hold onto the promising young players they have, their future may be a lot brighter than it appeared to be this time last year. They were underrated at the start of URC but they are coming out from under the radar and the perception of them being an automatic third to the Bulls and the Sharks is starting to change.

The Sharks were beaten in an away game by a good team. The Cape Town result isn’t the one they should be concerned about. The one they should be concerned about is the one from the previous week when they were at home and their discipline cost them.