There was a remark from John Plumtree this week that got me thinking that I might just put my granny’s pension on the Sharks winning a trophy before this season is over.
Plumtree has been around the coaching block so many times he would get dizzy if he were foolish enough to open his eyes but he is too wily for that and knows that he who laughs last laughs loudest.
After the 66-12 loss to Bordeaux, the big Kiwi said:
“I’ve been in this position several times as a coach. When you play all year round, the occasional hiding happens when you are at your lowest ebb (regarding player availability) and we know we can bounce back later in the year.”
Plumtree is saying that the Sharks should not be judged on results when they have 18 players unavailable.
He is scratching for players because of an injury crisis that is almost unfathomable but while he has to grin and bear the embarrassing results, Plumtree knows that when his top players are back, the Sharks will be difficult to beat.
Lest we forget, the Sharks were in a similar position last year.
They were bottom of the United Rugby Championship and suffered the ignominy of losing to a Zebre side that had been unable to win any of their previous 28 games.
It was the rock bottom for the Sharks but then slowly but surely they got players back from the Springboks and from injury, and they rose from stone last in the URC to winning the Challenge Cup and the Currie Cup.
Folks, the reality of the South African season is that no team can shine for all 52 weeks of the year, and that is correct —our top players are on duty from January to December.
As TS Elliot wrote in his magnificent poem The Second Coming, “Things fall apart, the centre cannot hold… the ceremony of innocence is drowned and the best lack all conviction…”
But Elliot is not all doom and gloom and adds that a “Second Coming is at hand”.
At the risk of sounding poetically dramatic, I firmly believe that the Sharks will rise, Phoenix-like, from the ashes of the 66-point humiliation in Bordeaux to defend their Challenge Cup title and push hard for URC Honours.
Lovers of John Lennon might say “I’m a dreamer”, but I’m not the only one, and again I bet my grandmother’s long-earned lolly on the Sharks winning a trophy,
Simply put, the Sharks have too much class in the bank, and while they currently have a deluge of first-choice players out with injury, they will have a flood of quality returning simultaneously.
The Sharks’ next Challenge Cup match is against the ordinary French side Lyon.
By that stage, Plumtree will have back (the massively underrated) Gerbrandt Grobler, Eben Etzebeth, Andre Esterhuisen, Aphelele Fassi, and a horde of other Springboks.
Lyon will be lambasted.
Take it from this seasoned Sharks reporter, the Sharks will win another trophy this year. TS Elliot agrees.
– RUB OF THE GREEN column will be published every week on the Sunday Tribune.