It’s not always the case that there is a fair amount to identify as having gone wrong in a game you’ve just won, but for Hollywoodbets Sharks head coach John Plumtree, things didn’t all go according to plan despite a bonus point victory over Zebre Parma on Saturday.
Their Vodacom United Rugby Championship clash at Hollywoodbets Kings Park once more produced the goods and cemented a top four place with a nine-point buffer over Cardiff in fifth position on the log, but it wasn’t the performance the coach would have liked to see.
“It just shows that it doesn’t matter who you play against, if your skillsets are poor, and you can’t build pressure with the ball, you don’t play in the right areas and your kicking’s not good and you’re not winning the aerial battle, you can be in for a long day,” Plumtree admitted after his side had defeated the Italians 35-34.
“With some of the athletes we have, we have a big physical pack and I thought our forwards were really good; the scrum was good, I thought our driving maul was good and some of our work inside their 22 from the forwards was really good.
“But in the middle of the park, our skills were really poor, we turned over possession and allowed their backs to hurt us.
“So we’ll look at that, as well as our kicking; we aren’t winning the aerial game, we’re not doing enough with our contestable kicks and that’s hurting us.”
After an early 14-nil lead, the players might have been duped into believing that a huge score was on the cards, but it didn’t turn out that way.
“It was easy for us in the beginning, but then we made it easy for them,” Plumtree acknowledged.
“When we didn’t nail our skills, we made it easy for them, and with that, we made it hard for ourselves.
“I thought the team was up for it emotionally, we had a really good week and I’m not pointing the finger at us mentally not being in the right place, I just think our skills were terrible. Areas of our game that were down nearly cost us the game.”
On the flip side, a season ago, in close games like this, chasing the win and coming from behind might not have been accomplished, which shows that the character in the group has grown immensely. But for now, some inward looking will be taking place.
“Some of the combinations in the backs didn’t click, but I thought the forwards were really good, they worked hard, and the team will be hard on themselves, they won’t be happy.
“We have a lot of Springboks who are proud guys and we’ll put our hands up and say, ‘That just wasn’t good enough from what we can deliver as a team,’ but as coaches and management, we also need to look at what we could have done differently too.
“There will be a deep dive into this performance, but at the end of the day, we’re still in the competition, we took five points from the game and we have pretty good opposition coming up this weekend that we know we can’t afford to play against like that.”