Even on the night of the game against Edinburgh at The Hive the deflection away from the real issue that should be bothering the Hollywoodbets Sharks after an abysmal Vodacom URC season continued.
Social media posts from the Sharks’ owner Marco Masotti were circulated, in which he suggested that perhaps lie detector tests would clear up the uncontested scrum issue that blighted the previous game against the Ospreys.
The Ospreys game was played six days earlier and while the Sharks did have a legitimate grievance around those scrums, and also in the view of many around the incident that injured Ethan Hooker, it came across as too much.
Yes, like in his social media post earlier in the season where he called Sale Sharks the Sale Guppies (The ‘Guppies’ by the way made it to the Investec Champions Cup quarterfinals), his comments might have been intended tongue in cheek. But it came across as more deflection away from the real issue - which is the continued underperformance of the most well heeled, from a financial viewpoint, club in South Africa.
AT LEAST THE OSPREYS ISSUES CAN BE DROPPED NOW
The one positive aspect perhaps of the Sharks losing to Edinburgh was that the Ospreys game doesn’t have to be part of any conversation when it comes to why yet again the Sharks, with all their riches, have failed to make the playoffs of the URC and, more significantly, yet again failed to make it into the Investec Champions Cup.
Had they beaten Edinburgh, there might have been a lingering argument that the Sharks were denied because of the Ospreys result. But that is now moot. The Ospreys result did not impact on their performance against Edinburgh, which just wasn’t good enough, and it is now no longer possible to use the Bridgend game as any kind of excuse.
Not that there was any, for the Sharks’ failure this season goes way beyond just the two most recent overseas losses. It could be argued that it was in the stars when, in the pre-season, the now former coach John Plumtree at times only had eight fit players at training. How can anyone do a pre-season with eight players?
RECRUITMENT DEPARTMENT CONTINUES MUDDLING ON IN GREY AREA
Plumtree knew then what was coming for his team, and he complained at the time about the lack of help he was getting to redress the situation from elsewhere in the building at Kings Park. In other words, and he wasn’t the first coach at the Sharks to do so, he was fingering a disconnect with the recruitment department.
Sure enough, when there was an audit done on where the Sharks were going wrong in November into December, apparently it was the recruitment that was put under a particularly harsh glare by the people who were interviewed. And yet, since then, there has been grey area.
No-one has been fired, there has been no talk of replacements, and while there has been talk of a veteran Australian, James O’Connor, being recruited for what could only be a temporary salve for the Sharks’ flyhalf problem, there are young stars such as Luan Giliomee and Hakeem Kunene leaving.
There have been injuries, and they continued to mount in the Edinburgh game. Jaden Hendrikse was stretchered off with what looked like a severe concussion. Siya Masuku limped off and given the discomfort he was in it is unlikely he will play again this season.
However, even when they are injury ravaged, the Sharks still have quality players to draw on, and the team that lined up against Edinburgh still had enough experienced Springboks in it to be more than competitive.
Admittedly some of those, such as Ox Nche and Vincent Koch, were only introduced later in the game, and as an aside, had they started against Ospreys the previous week then the uncontested scrums issue might not have arisen.
ISSUES GO WAY BEYOND IDENTITY OF COACHES
There was some irony too in the fact the Sharks’ quest for a top eight finish was ended by a team coached by one of their own.
Sean Everitt was a long time employee at the Sharks before he took over as coach himself in 2019, only to be sacked a few years later after his initial plan of bringing through and creating a culture with youngsters he’d worked with was subverted by new owners who targeted Galactico players and were under the mistaken impression that a cheque book can solve rugby problems and create rugby success.
Everitt was just one of several coaches who have come and gone through the revolving door at the coaching office at Kings Park and the trend is to blame the coaches, and yet since 2013, when the long serving and highly capable CEO Brian van Zyl cleared his desk, there’s been a systemic problem that goes way beyond who coaches the showcase team at the franchise.
If there’s anyone who feels the Sharks can be excused for their performance over a long period consider this - the Sharks have considerably more money than both the Bulls and the Stormers, and yet both the Bulls and Stormers have finished in the top eight of the URC every year it has been played. In fact neither of them has ever ended lower than sixth.
This is the second time in the space of three years that the Sharks have failed to make the top eight and if you look at their financial clout as well as the players on their books that is just ridiculous.
A big part of the problem is that they have had too many Bok starters, meaning they go without them for part of the season, but there’s a science to recruiting that up until now the Sharks have appeared unaware of. So much that happens at the Sharks seems hit and miss.