Hollywoodbets Sharks head coach John Plumtree said his players did not pitch up at Emirates Airline Park to face a desperate Emirates Lions and deserved the 38-14 mauling.
“Obviously it wasn’t what we expected, we’ve let ourselves down and our fans will be disappointed. We didn’t expect that to happen."
"We had a really good week physically [in training], but we didn’t nail it mentally."
"We will have to question our build-up mentally for this game. We’re not going to be a side like the Lions, who had to win today if we’re not in the right space mentally."
"But all credit to the Lions. We knew it was going to be tough and they wanted it more."
"They won most of the collisions and just worked harder around the park. If you’re playing against a side like that and not in the same space [mentally], you’re going to come off second best, and badly."
"They got 38 points and we got 14, so we can’t really moan about the conditions."
“I think a lot of those scrum penalties are 50-50 and went the Lions way. But we’ve got to be able to control that. It’s not a criticism of the referee, we can’t blame him for that performance."
“We have to make sure, as players and management, that we learn from this and it never happens again this season. We still have high hopes of doing well and this is a massive wake-up call for us.”
The Sharks will not spend too much time to digest the 38-14 loss and will build towards their next match in Durban against the Lions.
“We will just grieve this loss. It hurts and we will have a good look at it and then we will build towards next week."
“A week’s a long time in rugby and this time next week, we can’t be feeling like this.”
“We’re just going to look inward at everybody, all the players and management. Then we’ve got to make sure that we learn from this and that it never happens again. We still have high hopes of doing well and that is a massive wake-up call for us."
"Our last three games have been away from home, so we’ve got a home game next week and we look forward to playing in front of our fans again."