AUDIO: This is not good enough to beat Leinster
The Sharks managed to escape with a fortuitous one-point win over Zebre in the United Rugby Championship outing in Kings Park at the weekend, but the standards and skill of the players were ‘not good enough’.
That was the reaction in the aftermath of the nervy 35-34 victory over the Italian visitors at Kings Park – one of seven matches in Round 13 where the margin was four points or less.
Other close calls include the Bulls ending Leinster’s victory run with another one-point (21-20) win, Glasgow edging Munster 28-25, Cardiff beating the Lions 20-17, Benetton winning 21-18 against Edinburgh, Ospreys sneaking past Connacht (43-40) and the Ulster winning 34-30 against the Dragons.
The ‘exception’ of the weekend was the Stormers’ 29-17 win against Scarlets.
The Sharks twice had to come from behind against a willing and energetic Italian outfit, a Jordan Hendrikse conversion of an Ethan Hooker try with five minutes to go secured the win in Durban.
The bonus-point win saw them finish Round 13 in fourth place in the standings.
Now they turn their attention to a Leinster team that will be out to make amends for their first loss of the season -= against the Bulls at Loftus Versfeld.
(Continue below …)
United Rugby Championship
Sharks coach John Plumtree admitted it will take a while to digest his team’s Round 13 performance.
“It doesn’t matter who you are playing against, if your skillsets are poor, you can’t build pressure with the ball, you don’t play in the right areas, your kicking is not good and you play against a side with a full back like they have [Geronimo Prisciantelli] you will be in for a long day he said.
The coach added that his forwards did well, but in the ‘middle of the park’ their skills were poor.
“Our turnovers [20-odd] allowed their backs to hurt us.
“We made it easy for them with our [poor] skills, which made it hard for us.
“We were up for it emotionally, but our skills were terrible and it almost cost us the game.”
(LISTEN as Sharks coach John Plumtree explains what went wrong in the nail-biting one-point win over lowly Zebre and what they must do to beat Leinster next week…..)
There were also some selection issues, with combinations in the backline not clicking.
“They will be hard on themselves.
“The team will be hard on themselves
“We have a lot of Springboks out there that are very proud.
“We will put our hands up and said this wasn’t good enough.
“As coaches and management, we have to look at what we could have done better also.”
He said will do some ‘deep dive’ analyses ahead of the visit by a Leinster team that will be hurting from losing their unbeaten run against the Bulls.
“We have a good side to play against next week,” he said, adding: “We know we can’t afford to play like that.
“They will punish us and won’t let us off. They won’t give us the soft moments Zebre gave us.
“We will have to play a lot better in every aspect of the game.
“We have a lot of work to do this week and be better next week.”
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* Picture credit: Steve Haag Sport
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