Sharks’ inconsistency could still cost them dearly

DURBAN: There is one thing you can rely on regarding the Sharks in Super Rugby this year is that they are consistently unreliable. If you were a betting man, you could make a fortune on the Sharks, given their consistent trend of backing up a good victory with a disappointing loss, only to respond positively the next match.

But then they fail to pitch up the following game. This is what happened this last weekend when a poor Bulls team pitched up at Kings Park with hunger in their bellies.

The hungry team won, the team going through the motions lost.

Since when does a Sharks team go to Kings Park and play with less hunger than the visitors?

They were superb in beating the Stormers, but then collapsed against the Bulls team.

Let’s look at how it started: in round one, the Sharks lost to a terrible Reds team in Brisbane and then responded to beat the Brumbies in Canberra.

Without going into the whole sequence of Sharks games, that is their pattern. They are simply inconsistent.

A disgruntled Sharks coach Robert du Preez said after the loss to the Bulls: “We were very disappointing. There was little intensity. We looked very disjointed. Most sadly was that the attitude was not there.”

Du Preez said the month-long break since the victory over the Stormers meant nothing because the Bulls had had the same break.

“We had Boks players not available because of injury but the Bulls had the same, so we simply have no excuse,” he said. “We simply had a lack of composure.”

There are some that say it might have turned out better for the Sharks had Du Preez played Curwin Bosch at flyhalf and Garth April at fullback, but the coach disagrees.

“I thought Garth had a good first half in the way he took it to the line, but he was a bit of a lone ranger,” Du Preez said. “The defeat had nothing to do with the flyhalf. The fact is that the team performance was unacceptable. We were ready, but mentally just did not pitch up.”

The Sharks have a bye this week and then play the Lions in Durban in the last round of the competition before the quarter-finals. The team have already qualified for the playoffs, but they might as well not pitch if they do not get their minds right.