'It's not healthy': Plumtree reveals fatigue problem at Sharks
SPOTLIGHT: Sharks head coach John Plumtree says fatigue has become a big problem in his squad as they brace themselves for another big South African derby against the Stormers.
The Durban-based side will head to Cape Town in 15th position in the United Rugby Championship standings with just one win from seven games.
They have already lost two derbies this month – a heavy defeat against the Bulls in URC before going down to the Cheetahs in the Challenge Cup.
In between those fixtures, they did record a win against French outfit Pau in the European competition.
Even though they have a number of big names in their squad, it has become clear that the squad is still finding their feet under Plumtree.
Ahead of Saturday’s fixture, the Sharks boss revealed that he also had no choice but to “overplay” a lot of his players.
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“I think the break was good timing for us,” said Plumtree.
“A lot of guys have played a lot of rugby. I haven’t been able to rotate the squad like I want to and that hasn’t been healthy.
“If you look at most of the other teams, they have rotated their squad more and I had to overplay some guys for different reasons.
“That’s what has happened and I think the break has come at the right time for us.
“This week has been good and we are looking forward to the challenge and we know what a massive challenge it is.”
Plumtree added: “Clearly we got a lot of work to do over the next year or two around our squad depth because the season is just brutal in terms of its intensity.”
The Sharks coach said he already knows how his matchday squads will look over the next few weeks.
“We are fielding a full-strength side every week. I haven’t been rotating at all and that is part of the problem,” he explained.
“It will be a full-strength side next week and it will be a full-strength side the following week and we have to do that right now.
“Until I feel like we have the squad, we are still firing away. We still want to make that top eight and we still want to do well in the EPCR [Challenge Cup].
“I just got to keep rolling with what I feel I’ve got and we might rotate a couple of positions and change a couple of things as we go.
“However, right now it is about working as hard as we can with the group I feel can do well.”
After trying to build combinations in the last month, Plumtree hopes it all comes together at Cape Town Stadium.
“We have scored some pretty good tries and we have had some good moments, but we have not been good enough as a collective to put all that into an 80-minute package.
“In many ways, we are still finding our way and we just haven’t managed to put together a collective performance that allows us to build enough pressure to beat a really good team.
“Until we are in that space, we are always going to be disappointed. We will get there, but we are not there yet.”
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