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Dark cloud hangs over Sharks

SPOTLIGHT: A dark cloud still hangs over the Sharks after they suffered their 10th defeat of the United Rugby Championship season.

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The Sharks have only won one match in the competition this season and Saturday’s 10-40 defeat to the Lions in Johannesburg just provided more questions.

The Sharks were still in the game at 10-19 down heading into the last quarter before the Lions outplayed them with their speed on attack.

The stats will show that the Lions scored six tries to the Sharks’ one and that should be another major for worry for coach John Plumtree and Sharks Director of Rugby Neil Powell.

“It’s a frustrating performance again from us,” said Plumtree.

“We were in it for 60 minutes and then the last 20 minutes wasn’t good enough.

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“We struggled a bit in the scrum and we allowed them access in our 22 and then their forwards got on top of us with their drive.”

Despite another defeat, Plumtree believes there will be light at the end of the tunnel soon.

“I’m really proud of the boys’ around the effort. We started badly again like the Stormers [match]. We were 3-19 down and we came back to 10-19 at half-time.

“We had two or three tries disallowed in the first half, which was pretty frustrating.

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“We had a poor start and a poor finish, so we just got to keep working hard and keep believing.

“We know that we will get it right but clearly we weren’t good enough on the weekend.”

@rugby365com

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