Scarlets produce another shock

CAPE TOWN – The Scarlets continued to build on the momentum that started to turn their way when they beat the Vodacom Bulls two months ago as they shocked the Cell C Sharks 32-20 in their Vodacom United Rugby Championship clash at Parc Y Scarlets in Llanelli. With the Sharks getting eight frontline Springboks back for this match no-one would have picked this results, although in retrospect, and with the perfect science of hindsight, perhaps we should have. John Plumtree, who is being lined up to take over the coaching reins next season, will tell you about the day his Currie Cup team was shocked by the Cheetahs in a semi-final back in 2009, when he selected too many returning Springboks at once into his starting team. The same thing arguably happened two years later, when the Sharks were thumped by the Lions in a domestic final in Johannesburg two weeks after Plumtree’s Boks had experienced the heartache of a quarter-final defeat in the 2011 Rugby World Cup.

RETURNEES STRUGGLING

Not that we should automatically just assume that it was a case of the returnees struggling to shake off the rust and fit back into the team, for the reality is that so much of what we saw from the Sharks in this game appears to be part of the same malaise that has blighted them all season. Let’s start with tactical acumen. The Sharks looked like they were coming back into the game and maybe even starting to take control as they began to find their power game shortly before half-time, but in the third quarter when the rain started to fall more steadily their tactics and game management was nothing short of inept.

Heard that or read that before? Perhaps, for something similar was said about the Sharks’ tactical ineptitude when they made a plethora of poor decisions when they were playing 15 against the 13 when chasing the game in the last 10 minutes of the Stormers game before this.