Proper judgement on Sharks starts with Ulster’s visit

Hollywoodbets Sharks coach John Plumtree was disappointed with his team’s performance against Leinster but it is hard to imagine he’d have disagreed beforehand with any punters who bet on a result similar to the one we saw at the AVIVA Stadium.

Plumtree always knew he was going to be up against it in the early stages of the Vodacom United Rugby Championship, with his team going on tour and playing the two most recent champions in the competition at a stage when the Durbanites were going to be without their Springboks.

Yes, the Sharks did have a clutch of Boks back for the Dublin game, but given the effort they expended in winning the Castle Lager Rugby Championship for their country in a competition that concluded just a week earlier, Plumtree was always going to let several of the star players return home.

Eben Etzebeth, Siya Kolisi, Ox Nche, Grant Williams, and Andre Esterhuizen watched the Dublin game from Durban while Bongi Mbonambi and Vincent Koch played off the bench, with just Ethan Hooker and Makazole Mapimpi starting against Leinster. And it is hard to refer to Mapimpi as a current Bok given that, although he is a squad member, he hasn’t played since July.

ANYTHING BETTER THAN ONE WIN WAS A LONG SHOT

Given the injury problems Plumtree had to deal with in the pre-season, and the need to bed in players brought in on loan from Currie Cup teams as reinforcements to fill holes, anything better than one win from the three game tour was always going to be a long shot. Which was why the draw to the Dragons in Newport was so disappointing. That game was the must-win.

The Sharks actually did better than expected in being competitive until the final minutes of their opening game against the Warriors at a Scotstoun venue known for being inhospitable to visiting teams. There was reason for the Sharks to feel encouraged after that game, but the inclement conditions a week later led to a dire, error-ridden game and the Sharks could not convert their massive scrum and general forward superiority into points.

CATCH-UP HARD AGAINST NIENABER’S DEFENSIVE SYSTEM

Against Leinster, with the home team getting many of their British and Irish Lions back and also smarting after two defeats in South Africa, it was always going to need the Sharks to be pitch perfect from the start. They weren’t, Leinster capitalised, and before they knew it the Sharks were playing catch-up.

It was a night where Leinster were under pressure to showcase Jacques Nienaber’s defensive system after they had gone walkabout against the Stormers and Bulls so once they were behind the Sharks had a mountain to climb that unsurprisingly wasn’t scaleable.

“It was a tough night for us. We knew the start was going to be massively important but they came out fast and we just didn’t get the contestable kicks in terms of regaining the ball in the air,” said Plumtree after the 31-5 defeat.

“We had a few soft moments defensively that allowed them to build up an early lead. The last 10 to 15 minutes of the first half we got back into the game, but it was really a case of catch-up rugby. In the second half we did our best but their defence was just too good. Once we gave them that lead, that gave them the confidence to defend really well. We just didn’t fire enough shots.”

BIG CATTLE SHOULD BE BACK FOR ULSTER GAME

It was the second week in a row where the defence conceded what the coach referred to as soft tries, with both Dragons scores the week before being the result of inept defence, so clearly that is an area the Sharks need to work on. But with their big cattle due back for the Ulster game, the Sharks should be in with a good chance of getting themselves off the mark in the wins column.

Ulster showed that talk of a renaissance for the proud Northern Ireland team is more than just talk with their demolition of the Bulls, but the pressure is on the Sharks, and the players who were rested for the Dublin game, to drive a turnaround.

Given the obstacles placed in front of them in the tour, this is when the judgement really starts for the Sharks, who lets not forget were up against a Leinster team that had players and combinations in it that were working out in Dublin in preparation for the Sharks game when the rest of the squad was in South Africa.

FIRST TIME COACH WILL SEE EBEN SINCE JUNE

The one thing Plumtree never has, given the number of Boks on his books, is a proper pre-season to work with his team, and this year is of course no different. When he sees Etzebeth and co in training this week it will be the first time he lays eyes on them in the flesh since the semifinal defeat to the Bulls that ended their 2024/2025 campaign in June.

The negative impact of going in without the top players was also amply underlined by the Leinster experience in South Africa at the start of the competition. Without their Lions players, the team that so comfortably won the 2025 final against the Bulls was beaten 35-0 by the Stormers and could only get one bonus point out of a loss to the Bulls in Pretoria.

But while the poor start is excusable, there is too much quality in the Sharks squad to countenance anything less than a 100 per cent haul from the home games against Ulster and Scarlets that precede the November international break.

“We’ve got a massive job ahead of us over the next two weeks. We’ve got a couple of home games and we’ve got to work real hard to get into this competition. It was always going to be a tough competition with the number of disruptions, but we can’t use that as an excuse. The team is disappointed and collectively we’ve got to take responsibility to be better.”

In short, what they really need to do is win.