SPOTLIGHT: Sharks head coach John Plumtree has reflected on his role in the Sharks’ camp after a dismal start to their United Rugby Championship campaign.
They have zero wins from four outings. The closest they have come to getting a victory in the tournament was a 17-all draw against the Dragons in Newport on tour.
Last weekend at home against Ulster, they were brimming with Springbok stars, but they failed to produce a performance worthy of title contenders as they fell to a 26-34 defeat.
Ahead of their Round Five fixture against the Scarlets at Kings Park, Plumtree was asked about the fallout from the latest defeat.
“The players are a proud bunch. For some people it might not look like that, but they are,” said Plumtree after he unveiled Eben Etzebeth as his skipper for the Scarlets showdown.
“They are human, and sometimes we get things right and sometimes we don’t, and I am not going to search for any excuses.
“I’ve had a look at myself and potentially I could’ve managed that two days of preparation better – what I could’ve done more, what I could’ve done less – and taken that on board.
“All I can do is really assure you that everyone is working as hard as possible. Sometimes when you do that, you still don’t get what you want.
“It is just really important that we don’t chuck our processes. We just have to go to work and ask for more effort and fight and then prepare as well as we can and then look forward to the weekend.”
‘I can’t control everything’
Plumtree will be striving for perfection in the things that he can control from a coaching point of view, but he admits the pressure is building.
“It’s my job to prepare the team to get the results that we need in order to get what we want at the end of the year,” he added.
“Does it put me under pressure? Yeah, of course it does. We all know the game, and we don’t go into it naively.
“There is a sort of feeling from me that I can’t control everything. Some things I can control, and those are things I look to nail personally in my job.
“I can’t control injuries; I can’t control the fact that we’ve had an early tour, and I can’t control the fact that we’ve had limited preparation when we go into a big game against Ulster.
“But what I can control is what we did in those two days. If I didn’t nail that, then I need to look at myself, and that’s what I have done.
“I feel like we have come a long way. When the squad is all fit, I think we’ve got the best squad that we’ve ever had that can win rugby matches, and we just want the opportunity to turn this around.
“I think that is the key thing. We’ve all got to work smart and hard to do that.”
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