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Sharks coach John Plumtree – to his credit – didn’t blame the Beast for his side’s defeat.
Durban – There was a match-clinching moment towards the death of the Sharks versus Bulls Super Rugby match at the weekend that reminded me of just how powerless coaches are when it comes to the pendulum swinging either way in agonisingly close matches.
Sometimes match-defining moments go your way, and on other occasions they don’t, and sometimes players simply get caught up in the drama of the moment and forget the plan on how to deal with certain situations when the match is on a knife-edge.
One of the best examples of how not to close out a game was the 2007 Super Rugby final between the Sharks and the Bulls at Kings Park.
On the balance of play, the home side deserved to win and when Albert van den Berg scored a try as the game moved into the last 10 minutes, the Sharks simply had to kick the conversion to move more than seven points clear, and then control possession from the kick-off.
They did neither. Frans Steyn impetuously rushed up and took the ball from stand-in captain AJ Venter – when experienced kicker Butch James was the one who should have taken the kick – and hooked it in front of the posts (why world-class kicker Percy Montgomery had been mysteriously subbed in such a massive game is a subject for another column).
With the relieved Bulls now within seven points of winning the game, they launched an almighty assault that for the Sharks was not helped by James failing to find touch with a clearance attempt, or by referee Steve Walsh getting caught up in the euphoria of the Bulls’ fightback and allowing a multitude of offences by the desperate visitors to go unpunished as they worked their way to the famous Habana try after the hooter.
There was a similar, if infinitely more costly, error in the 2011 Rugby World Cup in the Springboks’ quarter-final match against Australia in Wellington.
The Boks had taken the lead three-quarters of the way through an incredibly tight match in which openside flank David Pocock had fought a colossal, almost lonesome battle, only for Danie Rossouw to commit a lineout infringement not long after his team had taken the lead – and James O’Connor kicked the Boks out of the World Cup.
Last week, there were shades of these matches in the Sharks v Bulls match at Kings Park. The Sharks had valiantly fought their way into the lead following a touchline conversion by Patrick Lambie of scrumhalf Charl McLeod’s desperate try.
The match was into the dying minutes and all the Sharks had to do from the kick-off was control possession. But then the Beast pulled down a Bulls forward in the lineout. Morne Steyn stepped up and nailed the kick, and the game was won and lost.
Just like that the Sharks were out of the running for the play-offs, and the Bulls had cemented their challenge for a home semi-final.
Let’s not be too tough on the Beast in what was his comeback game. But let’s also spare a moment for the Sharks’ coaching staff. They live and die by results and sometimes games that determine the course of the team in the competition come down to individual errors that the coaches cannot control.
To his credit, Sharks coach John Plumtree offered no excuses for the defeat by the Bulls. On the night the home side certainly had their chances to win the match.
But if we were to be fair to Plumtree and his coaching staff, that game – and a number of others – would probably have been won had the Sharks been at full strength. – The Mercury
