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Introspection required from Sharks coach

rugby14 April 2019 15:57| © Cycle Lab
By:JJ Harmse
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Robert du Preez © Gallo Images

Perhaps the most frustrating thing for Cell C Sharks fans this past weekend was the realisation that the supposed shock result against the Jaguares wasn’t really so shocking after all.

The Sharks have flattered only to deceive so often in recent seasons for a reverse the next match after a brilliant win to be almost expected. Think back for example to last season, when the Sharks returned from two excellent showings in succession in New Zealand to a 30-point home defeat at the hands of the Bulls.

The loss was regarded as a massive wake-up call, the backs were to the wall, and a sheer refusal to lose saw the Sharks home narrowly against the Stormers the following week. The usual trend of hoping for one win to signify a change of fortunes then came into play, but it didn’t turn out that way. The Sharks were well beaten when they went to Loftus for the return fixture against the Bulls.

The problem with the Sharks is that everything always seems so mood-based. To be fair to them, they haven’t just experienced a one week on, one week off scenario. There wasn’t anything wrong with their attitude against the Bulls the week before they went to Johannesburg for their big win against the Lions.

It was the tactical application, their predictability and their rather pedestrian execution of their attacking plays that let them down in the home match against the Bulls.

The Sharks do have technical and tactical weaknesses in addition to attitudinal problems, and the Supersport television commentators highlighted one of the main reasons of concern over the past few months, and before that, when they spoke of the Sharks lacking attacking shape and appearing to be without a coherent plan.

But what was also noticeable was how quickly they also picked up that this was going to be another day when the Sharks just didn’t pitch at the races. Hardly two minutes had gone before there was talk of sloppiness and a warning light flickering.

In most instances that would seem premature to take a line so quickly, but when it comes to the Sharks it is perhaps understandable. It is possible to tell quickly whether the Sharks have the right attitude on the day.

Coach Robert du Preez pinpointed that as an area of concern afterwards.

"All the ‘no talent’ stuff let us down: mindset, attitude…all those things," said Du Preez in trying to explain the massive 51-17 defeat.

"You can’t go from one week playing incredible rugby and then come and have a performance like this one today. That is just not good enough."

Here is the biggest problem faced by Du Preez though: you can indeed go from the sort of performance that buried the Lions 42-5 in their own back yard to the abject showing of Saturday - his team have shown that often enough.

And what Du Preez needs to ask himself is why the attitude is so often wrong, why his team seems so schizophrenic, and why he has so often at a post-match press conference found himself talking about his team being beaten by a more hungry or aggressive opponent and why, to quote him from after the home Bulls game last year, they get “out-passioned”.

Reading between the lines of what Du Preez says, it often appears he is blaming the players, but he needs to ask himself who is responsible for attitude and mindset, who is responsible for creating the right team culture, and where the buck actually stops.

Surely it stops at the coach? As a reference point, if you follow British soccer, think the difference between Manchester United in the last days of Jose Mourinho and compare them with the early days of their new coach.

Du Preez wasn’t the local coach who went into this most recent round of Super Rugby under the most pressure. It appeared Stormers coach Robbie Fleck was, with the word from Cape rugby insiders before the Rebels game being that Fleck’s tenure would be terminated by the end of the weekend if the Stormers did not win.

There would have been plenty of savage irony had that scenario come to pass, for whatever you want to say about the Stormers’ performances on their overseas tour, lack of effort or a moody failure to pitch wouldn’t feature.

They were beaten by two good New Zealand teams in their first two games, and in both they put in a massive effort but made mistakes that cost them. The only game you could argue the Stormers didn't pitch for this year was the opener against the Bulls.

The one thing the Stormers most emphatically were not on tour was a team that was not playing for it’s coach, or a team that was playing for a coach that had lost the change-room. By contrast, given how often Du Preez targets attitude as a primary failure for his team, Du Preez appears to be acknowledging that there are times when the change-room is not always aligned behind him, and that there may be far deeper problems afflicting his team than simply making playing or selection mistakes.

The Sharks put it together on given days, such as when their most popular player is breaking a Super Rugby record for caps, or when they have been so individually embarrassed the previous weekend that they come out determined and angry.

Those days they appear to be driven by personal pride, as they would have been when they beat Western Province, who had given them 50 in league play, in last year’s Currie Cup final.

But a professional rugby team, charged with the task of drawing in paying spectators into their stadium through sustained success, has to rely on more than the sporadic emotional spikes that are currently sustaining the Sharks’ challenge.

The stat that reflects that three of the four defeats so far have been at home must surely send Du Preez the message that he cannot just blame his team’s losses on attitude, he needs to find out why the attitude waxes and wanes like it does and then address it.

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