The following from News 24:-
"They returned to winning ways against the Reds last weekend, but the Sharks will still be haunted by a poor Super Rugby season when they host the Melbourne Rebels in Durban on Friday night.
The biggest problem that the Durban lads have faced this season? A leaky defence.
That is at least the view from the outside, and coach Gary Gold has confirmed that defensive issues were a problem well before the Australasian tour.
No one has denied that our defence leading up to the tour had been woeful. There were definitely situations that were well below our standards, that all capitulated in the Crusaders game (Sharks lost 52-10 at home)," Gold told The Witness newspaper this week.
"When we had the opportunity to tour we sat down and put focus on areas we believed were important, none more so than the defence.
"That was a combined decision. It was not one person's fault or reason why the defence wasn't working. There are numerous reasons why it doesn't function.
"We're still very disappointed in the Highlanders' performance, a couple of soft tries in the game and we felt that everything capitulated from there.
But despite three successive losses on tour to the Highlanders, Hurricanes and Waratahs the Sharks came home with a gritty 21-14 win over the Reds. "It was important for numerous reasons; we worked hard for the full four weeks on tour and how desperately they deserved some reward. It wasn't the best performance but was pretty effective," Gold said of that win.
"There are still areas to work on that we feel were sub-standard, but at this stage of the year it was a very important victory and I'm proud of how the guys stuck to their task.
"From our point of view, we have two home games and we know for the continuity of the Union how critically important it is that we continue on winning ways."
COMMENTS
In dealing with the LEAKING defense there are two issues to be dealt with and those are -
* defensive team deficiencies and strategy; and
* poor defence by individual players.
The first issue is difficult to deal with and is obviously dealt with by the team management if Gold's comments are borne in mind.
The second issue is the failure of players to make their tackles. Here there are two issues that needs to be dealt with, ie -
* backline player deficiency; and
* back row player deficiency.
Although some site members make statements as if there is nothing to learn from stats - the real issue is that stats give an indication of tendencies in player performances. The other issue is that some players are habitual "offenders" where correction of deficiencies will be extremely problematic to deal with and others are where upgrading would be possible.
I am only going to deal with in the cases where players are regulars and not those playing occasionally in certain positions and am making an analysis of the following:-
SP Marais
Tackles made - 20
Tackles missed - 3
Missed tackle ratio - 13,04%
Lwazi Mvovo
Tackles made - 19
Tackles missed - 5
Missed tackle ratio - 20,83%
Odwa Ndungane
Tackles made - 25
Tackles missed - 17
Missed tackle ratio - 39,53%
JP Pietersen
Tackles made - 53
Tackles missed - 11
Missed tackle ratio - 17,18%
Waylon Murray
Tackles made - 24
Tackles missed - 8
Missed tackle ratio - 25%
Francois Steyn
Tackles made - 48
Tackles missed - 16
Missed tackle ratio - 25%
Andre Esterhuizen
Tackles made - 49
Tackles missed - 18
Missed tackle ratio - 26,87%
Patrick Lambie
Tackles made - 39
Tackles missed - 6
Missed tackle ratio - 13,33%
Cobus Reinach
Tackles made - 67
Tackles missed - 13
Missed tackle ratio - 16,25%
Willem Alberts
Tackles made - 52
Tackles missed - 16
Missed tackle ratio - 23,53%
Marcel Coetzee
Tackles made - 129
Tackles missed - 11
Missed tackle ratio - 7,86%
Renaldo Bothma
Tackles made - 98
Tackles missed - 19
Missed tackle ratio - 16.32%
So lets classify the above based on the missed tackle ratio and highlight in the case of which players the defensive stats are deficient:-
Odwa Ndungane - 39,53%
Andre Esterhuizen - 26,87%
Francois Steyn - 25%
Murray - 25%
Mvovo - 20,83%
Pietersen - 17,18%
Reinach - 16,25%
Lambie - 13,33%
Marais - 13,04%
Alberts - 23,53%
Bothma - 16,32%
Coetzee - 7,86%
From a tackle effectiveness point of view -
* 25%+ ratio is very poor
* 20 - 25% is poor
* 15 - 20% is questioinable
* below 15% is good
* below 10% is excellent
It really is time for Odwa Ndungane to be replaced - his defense is horribly poor.
I am surprised at the findings as to Esterhuizen - he was screamed at by members as a failure in defense, but his missed tackle ratio is marginally above the one of Francois Steyn, It must be borne in mind that Esterhuizen is a rookie - learning his trade - Steyn is an experienced player. Esterhuizen had one particularly very poor match and it is clear that he is going to overcome in time his problems as to defense. Steyn unfortunately year after year is in the 25%+ category and it would be virtually impossible to get him out of that category if the past three years is anything to go by.
Alberts is reputed to make strong tackles, but he is also well-documented to miss way too many tackles to be an effective loosie. His lack of pace allows too many players to just run past him in cases where he should at least attempt tackles - so he is actually a poorer tackler than reflected above.
