Ouch, Sharks circling the drain, only 1 win from 7 so far

Sharks are at risk of not making the top 8, again, after being comprehensively beaten by the bulls today. 

You would think with the talent in their team that they would destroy the sharks, but it was the Bulls that ran away with the game. 

If you look at the players they have in their team, you would think that they would walk through any team. 

No wonder Plumbers got given the beat by the All Blacks. He had all season to sort the sharks out, yet haven't been able to put anything decent together. Southern hemisphere rugby has fallen behind and you can no longer bank on magic feet and basket ball type rugby. 

The sharks have the following players in their ranks, yet they can't even stumble into a win 

Probably regretting spending all that money on players

Ox, Etzebeth, Hendrikse, Williams, Am, Rohan Jansen, Mpimpi, Fassi, Dyanti and Mpimpi. All who are boks and yet they can't get a win

Hold on Clever wanted Plumboom for Bok coach.

RJVR was hond sleg gister....but the rest of the team had glimpses...not a team yet.

After 7 games you wonder when they are going to hit their form. They trying to be too smart by shuffling the ball around. The only decent players they have in their pack are Ox and Etzebeth. Pepsi looks decent and so does Fez, but the rest are no name brands. Where as the rest of SA teams seam to have gone back to their old style with some mongrel in the pack. 

Bulls right now probably have the best pack and some quality youngsters coming through. 

The lions seem to have found some decent forwards too. Tsesuka moved to 6. Horn, Louw is doing a decent job. Then that 150kg fat prop looks super mobile and have some decent skill. I was surprised he almost played a full game and even had a fantastic line break. If he can drop 15 kilos he would be a beast. Or even dropping 20 kg could be one of the best. 

Stormers are hanging in there now the Kitsy is gone, but still very decent set of forwards. 

Roos hasn't been as flashy, but he is doing the hard graft and hitting ruck after ruck and making tons of ball carries. Probably marked more closely these days. 

Then Hannekom of the bulls reminds of Reid. Real prospect for this cycle and only 21. 

Sharks need to dump Noche and need to get some physical forwards. Only if they would get the du prize brothers back. Then you'll see an improvement 

Ja, given that Cheetahs are playing in Europe and hanging on by a thread. Wished they would either drop a Welsh side and bring the cheetahs back. They were decent in the URC and made the semis. 

What SA could do is to actually change our schedule and let the SA teams conference have the cheetahs in our shield. That way SA would have 5 teams but only the top 4 would play in the URC but without having to take a massive financial hit. We could even chuck the Pumas in that which means Extra 4 games but get rid of the Currie cup and just use it as a qualifier. 

During Feb and March there are 6 weeks of no comp because of the Six nations. We could just play our derby matches then. Better weather and not in the heat. 

So that could in Theory be the first leg of the SA URC. 

Then the 2nd Leg could be played In August September where the top 4 teams would then Qualify for the URC. 

Not sure if it would impact the travel schedule etc. 

Or simply just play the Cheetahs and our derby games in that 6 week march window. 

If they can figure it out then our Currie cup would have some meaning. Our boks will get a break and we could figure out a proper off Season. Instead of having the stupid Currie cup that overlaps with the URC. We just need to squeeze in either an extra 2 or 4 games 

Somebody is dreaming again.   We had garbage coaches n SA and Plumtree did well wih the S harks beforee White took over and fuck up the team totally.    When Meyer and Coetzee buggering up the Springboks and White buggering up the S harks -leading  to his  discharge by the Sharks Management I suggested that it would be better to look for a coach outside of SA to save SA Rugby.

In the end SARU approached Erasmus to take over coaching in SA Mozart started attacks on Erasmus because he wanted White as coach.   He even at one stage wrote that Coetzee is a better coach than Erasmus.    Despite the two WC he still is consiste ntly attacking Erasmus as coach.      He is about as mad as a march  hare when it comes to rugby        .   

Old Mike could read War and Peace and come away with only one impression,  that I’m like Napoleon…totally obsessessed.

With the wealth of experience players in their ranks this was a shocking performance yet again.

Something is very, very wrong in the organisation.

What the Sharks need is Rassie. He would turn things around in a month or so.

Yes Mike poor mozzz has a poor understanding of rugby. His long collaboration with Doos left him even more confused and wrong on so many issues.

Mozart

Reading War and Peace taught me that humans did not really change in their outlooks over the last 300 years.   War and Peace relates to issues iro peace not influenced by Napoleon - so his latest comment is idiotic.   War and Peace is about ordinary human life in a family environement.   Most of the characters of people Tolstoy described were memebers of his family and instances that haqppened in his family - that being the examples of may things he quoted in his classic novel - the bestever novel in the history of the wold.   His own expereince in the Crimea War and that of his family relates to that War.  It also resulted in his later life as a pacifist and even in War and Peace he was critical of the Government of Russia.   Some of those believes are hidden in War and Peace in such a way that censo rs could not obliterate his feelings as expressed in War and Peace.

In other words your understanding is simplistic BS.

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I see….well here’s the thing. These events never happened 300 years ago, they happened 212 years ago. If this puzzles you just think about the 1812 overture which was written about the same war.

So you say it was written about ordinary human life? Almost every significant character is a member of the nobility….it’s about noble families and their role in the military. The few ordinary characters are there as a counter point to noble life. Here’s a brief synopsis

War and Peace
Often hailed by critics as the greatest novel ever written, this epic tale traces the fortunes of five aristocratic families living through Russia's wars with Napoleon at the beginning of the nineteenth-century.

……

War and Peace is certainly a great book, but I rate The Brothers Karamazov as the best Russian novel. Crime and Punishment and Anna Karenina  are not at that level. Nor is Dr Zhivago which is a great movie but a much lesser novel.

Something like Solzhenitsyn’s First Circle is certainly more profound and Quiet Flows the Don is more enjoyable than W&P.

Then you have discounted all the great French and English literature.Here’s a link to a list from the Greatest Books site. W&P is ranked 7th. I recommend reading this it might broaden your horizons a bit:

https://thegreatestbooks.org/

If Jake could only get a High School Coaching job he’d attack it with the same energy. No bs, no excuses….the man is passionate about the game.

Jake can be a bit of a d!ck, but he's a solid rugga man.

Yes he is passionate about the game - but more passionate about what he can make out of coaching,     He left  the Brumbies in 2013 when he was sulking about him not getting the Ausie coaching job and basd it on him wanting to be nearer to his family in Stlelenbosch,    He then took up another coaching job in Natal - where he got fired and went around until he got a contract at Monspellier where he was given a two year cintract with renewal option , but the club would not renew his contract.   Then off to Japan where he coached until the Bulls job came up. 

Very convenient all this because he wanted to be near his family in Stellenbosch, where shortly after his return he divorced his wife. 

Jake is a good - but one-dimensional coach/   He was intially and still is a ten man rugby coach.   His problems at the Bulls was basically linked to his backline teams election and their failure to perform is the result.   What is weird is that he performs well in the fitrst year on club or franchise  level and the collapse in his seconf year.   Why nobody knows. 

 Is he a bettger coach and maanger than Erasmus - he is definitely not by the proverbial country mile/    

.As to Wat and Peace  opinions differ - and opinions changed  from tme to time.   I stay with other opinions on that one.