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“We’re obviously very upset to have conceded 25 point in the second half,” he said, this after delivering a very competitive first half.
Prior to the match, Plumtree admitted that after the Reds had so successfully pressurised the Crusaders into making mistakes, he felt that his charges should do more of the same.
“We wanted to,” he admitted, “but we ended up playing a lot of rugby in our own half. We’d build up some momentum but then got a lot of penalties and free kicks and that lost us opportunities to attack in their half. So to build pressure close to their goal line and not convert was hugely disappointing, we had to put pressure on their defence but never got into their 22 to do that.
“We were possibly a bit lateral in the offload but couldn’t get behind them, which was very frustrating. We were forced to pay a lot from inside our own half and the game was decided defensively.”
And the Crusaders certainly gave a good account of themselves against some of the more enterprising and powerful Sharks attacking opportunities.
“We probably kicked a bit more than we would have liked, but I encouraged the boys to be adventurous. However, that was difficult against a side who were so committed on defence,” he added.
With most of the scrums being reset or penalised for early engagement, there was very little opportunity to attack off the set piece and Plumtree admitted they’d be looking at this area during the week ahead of their match against the Waratahs.
“One of the areas we’ll work on is the scrum - we scrummed well at times and not others. He also pointed out that on attack, “when our forwards are involved, we have got to get running down the middle more, not out wide.” But he added that there is a steely resolve in this Sharks side. “We have to make sure we fight back, there is nothing else we can do. We’re here as a group, we know we will come in for criticism but we have to turn that into a positive. We’ll do what we need to do, but it’s not easy, it’s a tough problem when you’re not playing with a lot of confidence, and as a coaching group, we need to find some recipes to rectify that.
Facing the criticism he acknowledges is out there, he adds that, “We are trying, we really are, that’s the thing. Over the next week, we need to find some mongrel in us, we need to get really physical, we also can’t get despondent.
“But it’s a long road, a tough one and we need to work it out and find ways to pull through together.”
