Not another frustrating season of defensive rugby

THE article by Darryn Pollock (February 25) on the Sharks rugby game versus the Reds refers.

While the quality of reporting was an improvement on previous articles, some hard truths need to be said. Whereas the lead-up to the Sharks campaign showed promise, with some entertaining running rugby against a young Bulls B team at Crusaders, sadly the Sharks are only in B team status, as the quality of play was definitely of two B league teams, with neither showing great form.

With the departure of Gary Gold, I had high hopes that the Sharks would adopt a more attacking style; sadly not. Inexplicably, they retreated into the laager and played conservative rugby, kicking away valuable possession and opting to defend, and against a poor Reds side.

You have to work harder on defence and the injury count is generally higher. And they haven’t yet figured that you need possession to score. You cannot rely on mistakes made by the opposition; the New Zealand teams don’t make those mistakes. There was also a heap of poor decision-making, with Pat Lambie opting to not take the penalty kicks on offer (despite the fact that he was kicking well, up to his last pressure kick), turning down 9 points to score seven – and guess how much we lost by? Two points. But in reality that flattered the Sharks, because it could have been considerably more if Quade Cooper had his kicking boots on.

Pollock’s reporting that Cobus Reinach had “added another more tactical kicking game to his repertoire” is ill-conceived – Reinach kicked away countless possession with that dreaded box kick that is so predictable that he got charged down, and guess what? You kick possession away and find yourself back in the same spot where you kicked it, only now you are defending.

It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that this is a bad tactic. Do the stats. So frustrating to watch. At least if you are under pressure, kick for touch, then you can consolidate and compete for line-out ball; oh, but we don’t do much of that either.

And despite Lambie’s good kicking off the tee, his kick-offs were abysmal, as each predictably went to exactly the same place. Am I missing something here? If you kick closer to the 10m line at least you can compete for the ball, rather than defend from the same position every time as the opposition easily advances up the field from the predictable kick-off position.

At this rate, the New Zealanders are going to kill us, but what a luck, we don’t get to play against any New Zealand teams unless we make the play-offs, and the chances of that are very unlikely.

Lastl, the new No 14, Cobus van der Walt was a disaster, he couldn’t catch a ball. These are professional players and there is no excuse for poor execution and not making your catches, even if the ball is a bit slippery. Instead, the reliable and experienced Odwa Ndungane and Sbu Sithole were left at home.

I hope we are not going to have to endure another frustrating season of defensive rugby, else I will have to find a more entertaining team to watch.

On a brighter note, it is encouraging to see my old hometown team, the Stormers, play attacking rugby, what a breath of fresh air. The Sharks (like the Springboks) need an analyst and tactical adviser – they are free to contact me for advice.