Following the Hollywoodbets Sharks' loss to Ulster in Saturday’s fourth round Vodacom United Rugby Championship clash, head coach John Plumtree called for some serious introspection.
“It’s just disappointing, we expected so much more and it’s hard to get my head around it,” he said following the match.
“We only had two days to prepare for this game, and we worked as hard as we could in that short time, but we looked flat. We had a good plan and knew what we needed to do, but we didn’t execute it.
“We had plenty of opportunity through scrum penalties to get into their 22 and build some scoreboard pressure, but we just didn’t turn up physically. They were really good; they were clinical and put pressure on us early with a couple of great tries. We gave them a good start, and it was only when we first scored after about 30 minutes that we looked like we were in the right mental space.
“We started to put pressure on them, and after half-time we looked good and scored, and I thought we were coming back.”
But then came the turning point.
“Then bang, yellow card for Vincent Koch and then yellow-to-red for Mapimps, and that just killed us really. It became Mission Impossible from there.
“The comeback from there was always going to be really difficult after that.
“It was a bad night for us; there are no excuses. We know what we needed to do, and that was to get five points to get back into this competition. To get one is not good enough; we weren’t good enough. We know what quality we have in this group, and we all have to look in the mirror. We have to come back with a different mindset and try to get back into the tournament. To lose two games and one at home is not a great start.
“We’re working for a guy in New York who is passionate about this group, and he’ll be disappointed.”
While there were many positives to take out of the match, including a four try bonus point, the loss hurts. But for Plumtree, there are no excuses, despite the wholesale changes with the reintroduction of his Springboks and how that transition influences the synergy within the team.
“That definitely has an impact, but I’m not going to use that as an excuse here,” he said.
“We knew it might have been ugly, but last year when we played against Glasgow, we strung a pretty good performance in, so we can’t go into that space. We have to be harder on ourselves and look at the reasons why and where we can be better – that’s in our preparations, the coaches, everyone.
“That was a big loss for us. We’ve lost Ruan Dreyer to what looks like a serious knee injury, Mapimps might be out for a while, it could get ugly for us.”
“We’ve got this week to get it right against the Scarlets before the November break, and it’s going to be massive.
“The boys are hurting, they don’t want to get into that negative space because they know they’re better than that.”