Is Plumtree done? He was not very successful when he returned to New Zealand, and only seemed to be in jobs for a short period of time
The Sharks are totally rudderless. Either the game plan is poor, or the players just don't understand it.
A factor beyond coaching - other than player selection- is that South African teams have too many forwards who are ball carriers and not enough fetchers. At the very least, the number 6 must be an out-of-out fetcher who is frequently the 1st, 2nd or 3rd player to a ruck to either slow down opposition possession or speed up ball retention for their team.
It is not just about turnovers, it is about competing at every ruck. There are something like 200 rucks every game, so winning this facet of play is often the difference between winning and losing
Opposition teams are getting too much clean ball from the ruck while slowing down SA teams' ball.
SA teams get slow, messy ball at the ruck, making it hard to get a phase game going to make space before going wide.